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MILLWOOD 

A FAMILY TREE 

A Partial History of the Descendants of 

John Ellis, of Rehoboth, Mass. 

Mainly comprising that of his Grandson, 

Benjamin Ellis Jr., of Millwood, O., 

and his Descendants 
ALLIED NAMES: ELLIS, INGALLS, BALLOU 



-.^ 



BY F. O. Ellis (72) 



SwAMPScoTT, Mass. 

1909 







DeMcation. 



To ALBERT ELLIS, Esq., my beloved uncle, the last 

surviving of the children of benjamin and lois 

Ellis of Millwood; and to my own mother, 

Mrs. Margaret Ellis, who became a 

WORTHY MEMBEH OF THE FAMILY IN 
1844, AND YET lingers ON THE 
SHORES OF TIME ; IS THIS MEMO- 
RIAL AFFECTIONATELY 
INSCRIBED. 









PREFATORY. 

Everybody who writes a book, presents an excuse 
for doing so. This little volume is the result of the 
writer's interest in the subject. It is nothing to be 
ashamed of, to believe that "blood is thicker than 
water." We confess to a reverence for those who 
have gone before ; an honoring of the fathers. 

The matter of collecting and publishing what could 
be learned of the within Ellis family was discussed 
and even begun more than twenty years ago, but sus- 
pended because of other duties. Most of those 
then interested are now fallen asleep. Many things 
are lost, but perhaps some are gained, by this delay. 
Much of the work of tracing family lines is now 
done by expert genealogists; but as this involves 
money outlay, we were obliged to forego such assist- 
ance. Fortunately, however, the increased interest in 
early New England history has put a large collection 
of information in many libraries and historical rooms ; 
so that what would once have been exceedingly diffi- 
cult is now comparatively easy. 

All who for any reason undertake a work like this, 
find It difficult to secure information by correspond- 
ence, and we have been no exception. It would have 
been a pleasure to make the range of facts much 
more comprehensive; but instead of regretting, we 
are rather disposed to be thankful for the measure of 
favor that has been accorded us ; the humble results 
of which are now given to the present generation and 
their posterity. g 

SwAMPscoTT, Mass., 1909. 



The Ellis Name in America. 



This is one of the most common names of the 
present day in many parts of the United States. It is 
frequent in England and Wales ; and the largest 
published genealogy of the name in New England, 
is that of a Welsh boy, Richard Ellis, who landed in 
Massachusetts about 171 7. It reveals no connection 
with the Ellis line in this book. In France, the 
name is developed from fleur-de-lis (flower of the 
lily), and Huguenot Ellises are now found in this 
country. 

The large preponderance of ancestry of the name 
in America is doubtless English, and is found among 
the first settlers. At an early date there were many 
Ellises in several Massachusetts towns, and probably 
in other colonies. 

The spelling of the name was formerly greatly 
varied, especially by others than the Ellises them- 
selves. A few of these variations yet survive, as 
Allis and Eeles ; but with the diffusion of books and 
schooling, these have mostly disappeared. 

There has evidently been no comprehensive and 
thorough genealogical work yet done for the Ellis 
name in the United States. Probably it never will 
be ; and yet it is manifest from the few researches 
we have been able to make, that therein is an exceed- 
ingly interesting field for one who has talent and 
means with which to do the subject justice. A sizable 
genealogical work, such as many we have examined, 
often requires years of painstaking labor, travel and 
research ; and the expenditure of many thousands of 
dollars. 



Ellis Family History. 



The Ingali.s Family, 



An essential feature of the earlier history of the 
Ellis family herein recorded, is the connection there- 
with of the Ingalls name in New Ensjland. A brief 
sketch is herewith given, bringing it up to the time 
when it was joined to that of Ellis. Since it ante- 
dates the Ellis name, it is here first given. 

(i) Edmund Ingalls, born in .Skirbeck, England, 
with his brother Francis, came in Governor Endicott's 
colony which settled Salem, Mass., in 1628; two 
years before the founding of Boston. A year later, 
the two brothers, with two other families, left the 
Salem community and located about four miles west- 
ward, within the confines of what was by the Indians 
called Saugus or Saugust, but which was later named 
Lynn by the new comers, in honor of King's Lynn in 
England. A part of the territory retains the name 
Saugus, being a separate town ; while Lynn is now 
a city of about eighty thousand population. The 
eastern part of Lynn was a district known by the 
Indian name of Musqui-omsk-ut ; which in later 
years became Swampscott, and in 1S52 was separated 
from Lynn, and became a town of itself. 

In this eastern or Swampscott district of Lynn 
the Ingalls brothers established themselves. By trade 
they were tanners, and evidently they not long after- 
ward began business, by the side of a brook not far 
from the sea shore, on a spot about fifty rods from 



6 Ingalls Family in Lynn. 

where the writer of this sketch has lived since 1873. 
The location and history of the tannery is said to 
have been forgotten for a century, but at some time 
later than 1800, the old vats were found by some 
plowing or digging ; and eventually the whole history 
was recovered and written up in the annals of Lynn. 
The remains of the tan-vats were visible as late as 
1840. 

Edmund Ingalls was evidently a man of good re- 
pute and influence in the new community, and left an 
estate of several hundred pounds; which was a 
relatively large amount for those days. He was 
drowned in the Saugus river in 1648, by the break- 
ing of a bridge, while on his way to Boston ; and his 
heirs afterward recovered damages from the town. 
He is supposed to have been not far from fifty years 
of age. 

Edmund's son, John Ingalls (2), born in England 
in 1625, lived in Lynn until about 1685. He married 
Elizabeth Barrett of Salem, and removed to 
Rehoboth, Mass., and lived to the age of ninety- 
seven. 

The Rehoboth settlement was not many miles from 
the Providence colony of Roger Williams ; and bear- 
ing in mind the occasion of the Providence settlement, 
and the meaning of Rehoboth— " room " — (Gen. 
26 :22), it is easy to believe that a desire for religious 
freedom was the occasion for the founding of Reho- 
both. We do not know that any history or tradition 
tells us of the religious convictions of John Ingalls, 
but that he left behind him that part of the country 
wherein a little later the witchcraft delusion flourished, 
and where Qiaakers and Baptists were persecuted, 



Ingalls Family in Rehoboth. 7 

and went to a place so significant in name, and so 
near to Williams' settlement, is at least suggestive. 

It is said that at the time of the Revolutionary War 
there was nearly a hundred descendants of John 
Ingalls in and about Rehoboth, about ninety years 
after he went there with his family. Many of these 
served in the arm}^, and after the war there was a 
great exodus to " the west " (then New York) so that 
today hardly one of the name remains. 

Edmund Ingalls (3), son of John, was born in 
Lynn, 1682 ; died in Rehoboth about 1750. 

Ebenezer Ingalls (4) , son of Edmund, born in 
Rehoboth, 1711; died there 1771. 

Henry Ingalls (5), son of Ebenezer, b. Rehoboth 
1738 ; in 1 761 married Sibyl Carpenter ; and about 
1764 removed northward across the state to Rich- 
mond, in the edge of New Hampshire, and near the 
Vermont line as finally established. 

The children of this family were : 

(6) Elizabeth Ingalls, b. 1762; m. James 

Cook, Richmond. 

(7) Mehitabel Ingalls, b. 1764; m. James 

Ballou, Richmond, 1784. 

(8) Ruth Ingalls, b. 1767; m. Benjamin 

Ellis, Richmond, 1785. 

(9) RuFus Ingalls, b. 1769. 

(10) Ebenezer Ingalls, b. 1771 ; m. Mary 

Man, Richmond. 

(11) Sibyl Ingalls, b. 1774. 

(12) Lucy Ingalls, b. 1777. 

(13) Alpha (Alva?) Ingalls, b. 1780. 

(14) Henry Ingalls, b. 17S3; died young. 

(15) Sebra Ingalls, b. 1785. 



8 The John Ellis Family 

Henry, Edmund and Benjamin Ingalls appear 
early in the affairs of Richmond ; and Henry had 
recorded a purchase of land there in 1763. As his 
second child was born in Rehoboth in 1764, he had 
evidently been in Richmond previous to removal of 
his family thither, which seems to have occurred 
about the fall of 1 764 ; for he participated in Rich- 
mond's first town meeting, March, 1765. 



The John Ellis Family. 



In the Rehoboth settlement we have first mention of 
John Ellis (16), who was married in that town to 
Eunice Millard in 1738. To them were born : 
(17) Anna Ellis, 1739; m. Jere Fisher, Reho- 
both, 1 76 1. 
(iS) Jonathan Ellis, 1744; m. Susan Morse, 
Rehoboth, 1768. One son recorded, Wil- 
liam ; Rehoboth, 1769. 
John's wife Eunice died suddenly, July 3, 1749. 
The following year, 1750, he married Mary Horton -♦- 
of Rehoboth (a widow with two daughters) , and to 
them were born : 

(19) Martin Ellis, 1753; m. Mary Kingsley, 

Richmond, N. H., 1777. 

(20) John Ellis, 1755; m. Rachel Marsh, 

Richmond, 1774. 

(21) Martha Ellis, 1756. 

(22) Rebecca Ellis, 1758; m. Hugh Bullock, 

Royalston. 

(23) Lois Ellis, 1760. 



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of Rehoboth^ Mass. 9 

(24) Benjamin Ellis, 1762; m. Ruth Ingalls, 

Richmond, 1785. 

(25) Olive Ellis, 1765. 

(26) Sabra Ellis, 1767. 

All but the last one were born in Rehoboth ; she was 
born in Richmond, showing that the family removed 
about 1766. John Ellis was all of twenty years older 
than Henry Ingalls, and the Ingalls children were all 
born in Richmond, except the first two. 

The ancestry of John Ellis of Rehoboth is at pres- 
ent not determined. There was a John Ellis in the 
Plymouth colony, who evidently came from Leyden 
on the second voyage of the Mayflower, and a John 
Ellis Jr., is also mentioned in the early records, and 
was evidently his son. The descendants on this line 
have not as yet been clearly traced, but as there w^as 
a large increase of the name in and near Plymouth, it 
seems to have sprung from this stock, and John of 
Rehoboth, a few miles away, would appear most 
naturally to belong to that family. He seems to have 
been the first Ellis in Rehoboth, where he married 
Eunice Millard in 1738; the probable date of his 
birth being about 171^-17. In the same town in 
1 746, Hester Ellis was married to Joseph Lake, and 
in 1 75 1 Mary Ellis was married to Peter Millard. 
These may have been John's sisters, and none of them 
were born there, nor were any other of the name 
Ellis vintil John's children. 

Little can be gathered concerning the Ellis and 
Ingalls families after coming to Richmond. John Ellis 
had land, and the original dwelling was yet standing 
in 1882; which was successively owned by his son, 
Deacon Martin Ellis, and then by Martin's son Hosea, 



lo Ingalls and Ellis ^ 

and then by Henry Bullock, who was probably grand- 
son of Martin. On this land is the Ellis burying 
place, having about twenty graves, supposed to 
include those of John and Mary Ellis. 

We do not learn of an Ingalls burying place in the 
town, and it is apparent that most if not all bearing 
the name emigrated. Henry Ingalls was town clerk 
from 1766 to 1793, indicating unusual fitness. He 
was also a Justice of the Peace for a long period. In 
1785, a neighborhood in another part of the town 
sought the appointment for one of their number, but 
after a heated contest, Ingalls was again appointed. 
He removed to Worcester, N. Y., about 1808, and 
died there, i8n. 

Immediately after the conflict at Lexington and 
Concord, on April 19, 1775, troops were enlisted in 
New Hampshire under Col. Ephraim Doolittle, of 
which regiment a company was raised in Richmond 
by Capt. Oliver Capron. *lBoth Henry Ingalls and 
John Ellis joined Capron's company on May 5th, and 
Ingalls appears as sergeant and Ellis as private on the 
muster roll. The regiment was commissioned on 
June 1 2th, mustering seven companies. On June 17th, 
at Bunker Hill, both the colonel and lieutenant colonel 
were absent, and command of the regiment devolved 
upon Maj. Willard Moore, who was killed, together 
with three captains and three privates of the regi- 
ment ; but none were of Capron's company. The 
enlistment for this service seems to have been for 
three months, according to the pay roll. 

An appeal to sustain the resistance to Great Britain, 
by the New Hampshire Committee of Safety, was 
responded to by the signatures of a large number of 



Revolutionary Enlistment. 1 1 

the men of Richmond, among whom were John Ellis 
and Henry and Edmund Ingalls. 

This response is understood to have been equivalent 
to a pledge to bear arms if necessary ; but several 
citizens, owing to conscientious convictions, could 
not thus respond ; and signed a paper protesting 
against the principle of armed resistance. Among 
these was Martin Ellis (19), eldest son of John by his 
second wife, and who was then about twenty-two. 
Most of these protestants are believed to have been 
Quakers, of whom there was a society in the town; 
but Martin was a Baptist, and a deacon in that church 
for many years until his death in 1832. He became 
a man of marked influence, but evidently rendered no 
military service, nor do the records show that he ever 
held public office. Deacon Ellis, as he was always 
called, had a large family, of whose descendants we 
have at present little account, only that two of the 
sons removed to Vermont. The names are, Sylvanus, 
Benjamin, Lucy, Sabra, James, Daniel, Polly, Mar- 
tin, Sarah, Hosea and Candace. Jaines was killed 
by being thrown from a wagon at the age of twenty- 
eight. 

*'' In response to the call for troops for the relief of 
Ticonderoga in 1777, we find Capron's company with 
Henry Ingalls as lieutenant, and John Ellis as corporal, 
with James Cook as a private, probably the same Cook 
who afterward married Ingalls' eldest daughter. In 
the battle at Bennington and at Stillwater, Ingalls 
was lieutenant and Ellis was sergeant, but we do not 
learn how long was this term of enlistment. In the 
action at Bennington, August 16, 1777, Ingalls was 
wovmded, though probably not severely. It is stated 



12 Richmond Ellises. 

that the sound of the guns was heard distinctly in Rich- 
mond, a distance of nearly forty miles. 

It is apparent that John Ellis's eldest son Jonathan 
( i8) , who was about thirty-one at the breaking out of 
the war, did not enlist in Massachusetts ; but as there 
is no further account of him in Rehoboth, and the 
name appears among the New Hampshire volunteers, 
it is fairly certain that he had followed his father 
thither. 

The names also of Benjamin and Henry Ellis 
appear among the enlistments from Richmond in a 
Winchester company, the town adjoining Richmond, 
and the names make it seem possible they were 
brothers or cousins of John of Rehoboth, but they 
were pretty certainly sons of one Samuel Ellis of 
Medway, Mass. In Winchester also, in 1779, one 
" John Ellis of Richmond" enlisted, and "deserted 
on February i, 1780." This seems almost certainly 
to have been young John Ellis (20), who married in 
1774, and has four children recorded: Eunice, 
Edward Martin and John. He is not spoken of as 
" John Ellis, Jr." as would seem natural to do, but 
his father may have died before that date. No 
further trace of him appears, as we have of his elder 
brother. Deacon Martin Ellis. The Benjamin Ellis 
above inentioned was a corporal soon after his enlist- 
ment at the age of twenty, and was successively pro- 
moted to be lieutenant, captain and colonel. Deser- 
tions from the service were quite frequent, but many 
afterward rejoined their regiments, and we have no 
intimation of any being punished. The continental 
currency in which bounties and wages were paid, 
became so depreciated in two or three years as to 



The Ballou Family. 13 

be almost worthless, and no doubt many deserted to 
go to relief of their families. A petition to the 
provincial legislature of New Hampshire by the 
officers and enlisted men, reciting the distress of their 
families and imploring relief, is a pathetic memorial 
of that time. 



The Ballou Family. 



Since the Ellis, Ingalls and Ballou families became 
connected in Richmond, it seems fitting that we 
should here give what information we have that relates 
to the Ballou name. 

At a date not at hand, a minister's son, of the name 
Ballou, went from Cumberland, R. I., and settled in 
or near Richmond. He was the father of Hosea 
Ballou, the eminent Universalist clergyman. A 
cousin to Hosea, James Ballou (28), a young man, 
followed his uncle to New Hampshire and settled in 
Richmond about 17S2 . Here he married Mehitabel 
Ingalls (7) in 1784; and here he died in 1808. 
The children of whom we have account are : 

(28) James Ballou Jr., b. 1794; m. Rebecca 

Ellis, Zanesville, O. 

(29) Henry Ballou, b. 1796; 

(30) Mehitable Ballou, b. 1792; m. Abram 

Ingalls, Hebron, O. 

(31) Rufus Ballou, b. 1797; died young. 

(32) Elizabeth Ballou, b. 1801 ; m. Abram 

Garfield, Newburg, O. 
This family removed to Worcester, N. Y., in 1809. 



^4 Ballon and Garfield. 

It is known that Henry Ingalls went there about 1808, 
and died 181 1. Others of his family had probably 
preceded him, and his daughter, widow Mehitabel 
Ballou, followed with her children. The disappear- 
ance of the name Ingalls from Richmond would 
indicate a general emigration. 

In Worcester there lived at this time a farmer 
named Thomas Garfield, to whom a son, Abram, had 
been born in 1799. The Ballous and Garfields were 
neighbors for about five years; and then widow 
Ballou removed to Zanesville, Ohio, in 181 4. In 
1819 young Abram Garfield went to Ohio, and doubt- 
less visited the Ballous at Zanesville ; he being twenty 
and Elizabeth eighteen at the time. He located and 
opened up a farm at Newburg, near Cleveland, and 
in 1 82 1 went to Zanesville and married Eliza (as she 
was evidently then called), and their fourth child was 
James A. Garfield, b. 1831. 

When the future President was a Congressman, in 
1874, lie visited with his mother at her birthplace in 
Richmond, and found several of the Ballou name, 
which yet remains at last accounts, together with 
others with which the Ballou, Ingalls and Ellis 
families intermarried in the early days of the town. 



The First Benjamin Ellis Family. 



We come now to the second generation on the 
Ellis line, " to whom come these presents, greeting." 

Benjamin Ellis (24), son of John (16), born^in 
Rehoboth 1762, was about four years old on the 
removal to Richmond, and about thirteen at the 



JPirst Benjamin Ellis Family, 15 

beginning of the Revolution. At the age of twenty- 
three, he married, 1785, Ruth Ingalls (8), b. 
1767; third daughter of Henry Ingalls, town clerk, 
who recorded the first and second children, born in 
Richmond. And as we know that at some time they 
removed from Richmond, we are able to fix the date 
at about 1788, for their grandfather Ingalls, the town 
clerk, certainly recorded all the children born in 
Richmond. 

Children : 

(33) Henry Ellis, 1786; evidently died young. 

(34) RuFus Ingalls Ellis, 1787. 
(35 j Martin Ellis, 1789. 

(36) Benjamin Ellis Jr., 1791 ; m. Lois 

Palmer, Watertown, 18 15. 

(37) Silas Ellis, about 1794; m, Elinor Dick- 

ERSON, Grand View, Ohio, 1817. 

(38) Rebecca Ellis, about 1797; m. James 

Ballou Jr., Zanesville. 

(39) Sibyl Ellis, b. 1799; m. Henry Babcock. 

(40) Diana Ellis, about 1802 ; m. Stinson 

BuRRis, Matamoras. 

(41) Sabra Ellis, about 1805; m. Andrew 

Welker. 

(42) Henry Ellis (2nd), b. 1809; not married. 
Four of the dates "about" are conjectural; also 

the order of those four names. They are here 
arranged according to probability. 

This family may have first gone to Vermont, and 
thence at a later date to Watertown, N. Y. ; from 
which the family tradition says they came to New- 
port, O. Of this we can find no trace in the Jefferson 



1 6 Richmond to Water town. 

County, N. Y., history. There came into that 
county about 1798, two brothers, Lyman and Marvel 
Ellis, who were enterprising men, and gave name to 
the town of EUisburg, some miles from Watertown. 
Both were fifers in the Revolutionary^ army in Massa- 
chusetts, but no connection with the John Ellis family 
is known. They were joined later by Caleb Ellis 
of Massachusetts, a descendant of Richard Ellis of 
Ashfield, Mass. We once heard Martin (35) and 
Benjamin Jr. (36) speak of EUisburg, in 1853; but 
nothing was mentioned of any relationship there. 
But the latter had named a son Lyman, in 1837, 
and it is evident that the name came from EUisburg, 
for it is not found in any of the preceding Ellis or 
Ingalls families. 

Of the family life and fortune of Benjamin and 
Ruth Ellis in Watertown we have at hand no infor- 
mation. They may have lived there several years, and 
on their removal to Ohio, the elder sons, Rufus and 
Martin remained, so far as ascertained. The Palmer 
family came there from Vermont during that time, 
and at a later date the marriage there of Benjamin 
Ellis Jr., and Lois Palmer, gave to the world the 
posterity with which these pages have most to do. 

It is not apparent that the first Benjamin Ellis 
accumulated any property in Watertown, but it is 
evident that the children had at least a tolerable 
schooling for those days, as is manifest in hand writ- 
ing and spelling of some of them ; and that two or 
more of the daughters became teachers in Ohio. The 
same may be said concerning the writing of Lois 
Palmer, and indicates merit in the schools of Water- 
town. 


















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Watertown to Newport. 17 

Concerning the migration from Watertown to New- 
port, there are no details as to manner or route of the 
first part of the journey. It seems probable that they 
embarked on a sailing vessel at Sacket's Harbor and 
landed in what was then Genessee county, and crossed 
the state southward perhaps to Salamanca, on the 
Allegheny river. Our first definite information is, 
that they came down the river to Pittsburg on a flat- 
boat. While stopping there for supplies, they were 
in some manner exposed to small-pox, and soon after 
their arrival at Newport they all broke out with it.* 
Through the kindness of their neighbors, they were 
quarantined in a secluded house, and eventually all 
recovered. The date of this migration was either 
1808 or 1S09. 

The family settled on a small tract of land in New^- 
port, evidently a rented place. We are not able to 
gather information as to whether farming or some 
other occupation was depended upon. It seems prob- 
able that their circumstances were not encouraging, 
for not long afterward young Benjamin (36) , who 
was about eighteen on their arrival, shouldered his axe 
and walked and worked his way back to New York ; 
evidently to Watertown, to be with or near his elder 
brothers, who had remained. There is a remembrance 
that he was accustomed to make maple sugar in New- 
port with the early arrival of the season, and then go 
north with the advancing sun ; earning wages with 
whom he could, in the same vs^ork, as far as Lake 



*A tradition of this voyage is to the effect that " their intended destina- 
tion was Kentucky, but the father's illness was so severe that when they 
came to where is now Newport, they were compelled to land, and took 
possession of an abandoned cabin." 



1 8 Benjamin Ellis Jr.^ 

Erie. He may have done this for a year or two, 
before he went back to New York ; but he seems to 
have been there at work by the month, within perhaps 
two years of the time of the family migration. 

There is a tradition that the elder Benjamin Ellis 
(24) was not as robust as some of his descendants ; and 
had a tendency to weak lungs. He was by nature and 
habit a great hunter, and it is thought that on one of 
his frequent expeditions after game, his exposure 
developed consumption ; from which he died, about 
181 1 -12 ; and was buried in the cemetery at Newport. 

News of the father's death and the mother's destitute 
circumstances soon reached young Benjamin, and 
with his earnings in his pocket, reinforced perhaps by 
help from Rufus and Martin, he walked again from 
Watertown to Newport, not less than 400 miles. 
The widowed mother, Ruth Ingalls Ellis, was soon 
relieved of her distresses and her debts paid. 

It may well be imagined that young Benjamin's 
retvirn to her relief was a most providential event to 
his mother ; and the filial devotion shown by him is 
in full accord with his character in all his after life .; 
and an example commended to all who inherit the 
name or bear any kinship thereto. 

Benjamin leased a tract of land for his mother, 
and built on it a cabin home for her and the children 
remaining. Silas (37) may have helped him, but there 
is no mention made of him at the time. He was 
probably from eighteen to twenty, and was likely 
away from the family, at his trade as mason. Sibyl, 
Diana, Rebecca, Sabra and Henry, were probably 
yet with the mother. If the house was built in 181 2, 
as seems probable, the age of Sibyl would at the time 



in New York and Ohio. 19 

be thirteen, and that of Henry, three. The dates and 
order of the others, it will be remembered, are not 
definitely known. 

But it was not the intention of Benjamin to remain 
in Ohio, for he shortly turned again to New York, as 
before, it is said, on foot. He was now about twenty- 
one, and it is suspected that there was at this time 
an attraction for him there among the Palmer daugh- 
ters, or elsewhere in Watertown ; and Lois being 
then but fourteen, it hardly seems likely she was the 
one. As now appears certain, at some time after the 
battle at Sacket's Harbor in 1813, Benjamin enlisted 
in the Federal army, for frontier defense ; and served 
until the close of the war. He is said to have re- 
ceived two patents for land, or " land-warrants," as a 
bovmty for military service ; but to the writer this is 
not certain. No recollections of his army life are 
recorded, but he received and sold one patent about 
1856 ; which doubtless represented the 18 13 enlistment. 

It is known that on being mustered out at Sandusky, 
Ohio, early in 181 5, he again walked back to New 
York ; and it is not recorded whether or no he went 
down to Newport to see his mother and others of her 
family yet remaining. And if it be that some " girl 
he left behind him " had been married in his absence, 
he found another as good or better, for in December 
of that year is recorded his marriage at Watertown to 
Lois Palmer ; she being at the time seventeen and a 
half years old, and he just twenty -four. 



20 Elijah Palmer Family^ 

The Palmer Family. 



Not much detail of the family from which came 
Lois Palmer Ellis is now obtainable. A transcript 
of the family record is herewith given, as found in 
the Benjamin Ellis Bible, where it was written by 
Andrew, presumably at some time before his mother 
Lois's death, while he was living with her, 1862-64. 
All recollections agree that the Palmers were a Ver- 
mont family, who removed from thence probably 
soon after 1800, to Watertown, N. Y., where the 
first Benjamin Ellis family is thought to have lived 
for some years. Since Lois has been spoken of by 
her children as "a Vermont girl," it is tolerably 
evident that she and all the other children were born 
there. Some of these older ones were married and 
gone before her recollection ; all which was no doubt 
in Vermont. Hence the number of the family com- 
ing to Watertown can only be conjectured. 

The date of birth of the parents is not given, but it 

is fair to place that of the father about 1752, and the 

mother's about 1754, as they both died "in their 

nineties," and the date of death of each is given : 

(4-^) Elijah Palmer ) . , . ^^^ 

}^^{ TV 4^ TT r married m 1776. 

(44) MOLLIE HORTON j ' ' 

Children: Esther Palmer, born 1776 
Mary, 1779; Aaron, 1781 ; Lucy, 1784 
John, 1786; Eunice, 1788; Sarah, 1791 
Betsy, 1793; Roxana, 1796; Lois, 1798 
Ira, 1804. 
Of the above it is known that 
Ira Palmer died at Watertown, 1823. 



of Watertoivn^ N. Y. 21 

(43) Elijah Palmer died 1844. 

(44) Mary (Mollie) Palmer died 1847. 
Aaron Palmer died 1849. 

(45) Lois (Ellis) died 1864. 

There seems no reason to doubt that the parents 
ended their lives at Watertown, but the location of 
the children is unknown, xVaron was somewhere in 
New York, as remembered. He was a prominent 
Mason, and Lois was so prejudiced against Masonry, 
that it was with difficulty she could speak kindly of 
him. This was probably an outcome of the excite- 
ment attendant upon the Morgan episode of seventy 
or more years ago. One of the daughters was married 
to Asa Cassidy, in New York, and she and a son 
visited at the Millwood farm some time later than 
1840. Another, whose married name was Daniels, 
came from the same state at a later date, accompanied 
by a son, Francis Daniels, and the latter was so popular 
with the writer's father, that he afterward named his 
Small Boy for him. 

An incident in the early life of Lois has been told, 
showing the power of association, in matters of the 
mind. She had been away from home on horseback, 
and returning through the woods, became lost, though 
there was good moonlight. After uncertain riding 
for some time, she came to a clearing and farm build- 
ings entirely strange to her. While she was wonder- 
ing where she could be, one of the cattle or sheep in 
the barnyard moved, and a familiar bell tinkled. 
Instantly everything changed and came into place ; 
it was her father's farm and her own home ! 

Lois was fifteen years of age at the time of the 
battle at Sacket's Harbor in 1S13. We do not knov/ 



22 Widow Ruth Ellis; 

just the number of miles it was from her home, but 
she used to tell of hearing the booming of the guns in 
that conflict ; and it must have been a time of great 
fear and excitement. It was evidently her one vivid 
recollection of that war. And we can imagine how 
the people must have gathered from the country for 
miles around, to see what they could of the battle. 
It seems more than likely that young Benjamin Ellis 
was not far away, as we have noted, and that he en- 
listed for service in the army at about this time. 

Leaving for the present the narrative concerning 
Benjamin and Lois Ellis, we return to the widowed 
mother at Newport, but find few details of her life 
at that place. She is said to have become quite skilled 
and successful as a neighborhood doctor, and must 
have been held in considerable esteem, for she was 
spoken of as very useful in that capacity. But the 
children were growing up, and were soon married, 
or found homes and a living elsewhere ; Silas being 
married in 1817, and probably Sibyl also not much 
later. Diana and Sabra may have been also taking 
care of themselves ere long, as we learn that the 
mother finally removed to, or near to Zanesville, " to 
be near her brother," and that " she had with her 
only her son Henry, who was about nine years old at 
that time." This fixes the date as 1818; Henry (42) 
being nine in November of that year. 

It is tolerably certain that widow Ruth Ellis had 
no brother at or near Zanesville, but that her sister, 
widow Mehitabel Ballou, is meant. She had come 
to that place from New York in 18 14. The sisters 
Mehitable and Ruth had a brother Ebenezer Ingalls 
(10), who came to Ohio and settled at Hebron, Lick- 



Newport and Za?iesville. 23 

ing county, and died there. He may have lived first 
at Zanesville, and that may have been the reason why 
the Ballous came there, but inquiries have failed to 
discover any memory or tradition of Ingalls relatives 
at Zanesville ; whereas the Ballou cousins were known 
to the Benjamin Ellis family of Millwood. But 
there was intimacy between the families of Ebenezer 
and Mehitable, for Abram Ingalls, son of Ebenezer, 
married young Mehitable Ballou, his cousin, at Zanes- 
ville ; and their descendants are scattered through the 
middle and farther west. And James Ballou at 
Zanesville, probably as early as 1815, married his 
cousin Rebecca Ellis of Newport, Ruth's daughter. 

We are unable to determine any particulars of 
widow Ruth's residence at Zanesville ; except that 
" she did not live there long," being soon after killed 
by lightning; one account says " at the house of a 
relative," while others have always understood that it 
was " in her own home." It seems likely she was 
keeping house to herself in a dwelling owned by one 
of the Ballous; this would satisfy both statements. 
She is said to have been sewing near the open door 
or fireplace, perhaps between the tw^o, and was just 
rising from her chair, rolling up her work, with her 
long scissors in her hand, when a flash came and she 
fell dead. It must have been a bolt of great power, 
as it was told that ' ' it seemed as if every bone in her 
body was broken." She was somewhere near fifty- 
two years of age at her death. 

This was the end of the home life of the first 
Benjamin Ellis family, as such ; probably about ten 
years after coming to the state. Since Henry was 
then the only child with the mother, he is supposed 



24 Henry Ellis^ 

to have been cared for by Rebecca his married sister, 
and others of the family as they established homes of 
their own. There are circvxmstances that indicate his 
having lived with Rebecca Ballou (38), Silas Ellis 
(37), and Diana Burris (40) ; but more particularly 
with the latter. 

The sisters, Diana, Sibyl and Sabra Ellis are 
traditionally remembered as unusually handsome 
women. Diana was almost remarkable, on account 
of the length and abundance of her hair, which easily 
reached the floor when she sat in a chair and let it 
down. If we are rightly informed, her husband, 
Stinson Burris, was a farmer in Matamoras ; and the 
house which he must have built some seventy or 
more years ago is yet standing, and occupied by a 
family which has become wealthy from the petroleum 
now produced in that region. 

Henry Ellis (42) was never married, but became 
a teacher and continued in that work until his death. 
He was also a poet of no mean ability, so it was said 
by his old aquaintances ; but none of his writing is 
now obtainable. A verse inscribed on his headstone, 
doubtless prepared by himself, indicates his intel- 
ligence as to Bible teaching, whatever may have been 
his particular understanding of a future state. The 

entire inscription is as follows : 

" Henry Ellis, died July i, 1852; aged 42 years, 

7 mos. 17 days. 

Here to thy bosom, Mother Earth, 

Take back in peace what thou hast given ; 

And all that is of Heavenly birth, 
O God, recall in peace to Heaven." 

Henry became a painter of portraits and scenery, 



Teacher and Artist. 25 

and must have shown considerable talent in that line, 
as he seems to have been best remembered by his 
paintings. We have not learned whether he ever 
profited financially by his art ; probably, however, 
not to any great extent. The lack of wealth and 
culture in his day and neighborhood could hardly 
have furnished him with a remunerative patronage ; 
so it seems likely he painted mostly from his heart, 
because he loved to do so. 

As intimated previously, Henry's home seems to 
have been more particularly with his sister, Diana 
Burris. As a consequence, it is remembered that 
"her house was full of pictures," something that 
could not have been common in those days. One of 
these is especially remembered, having been seen by 
several of the present generation. It was painted 
upon the plastered wall of Diana's house ; over the 
fire-place mantel in the main living room, or parlor, 
as it might now be called. It depicted a hunting 
scene, in which a deer was a central figure, just fired 
upon or fallen, and an Indian hunter springing from 
behind a tree to secure his game ; the whole said to 
be very spirited and realistic. It may have been a 
memory of some experience told by his own father, 
and repeated to him by his mother, or possibly he had 
himself witnessed it in early days. And the picture 
is yet in existence, we are told, but covered with 
wall-paper by the present occupants of the house. 

A portrait of Diana and little daughter, painted by 
Henry, is in possession of a grand-daughter of Sibyl 
Ellis Babcock, sister of Diana. It would seem likely 
that other of his pictures are extant, among the Burris 
descendants, but of these we ha^e no knowledge. 



26 Henry Ellis^ Later 7ears. 

Henry probably taught school most of the time for 
about twenty years ; and we may suppose that one of 
his poetic and artistic temperament would be likely 
an idealist in the conduct of his school. Of that there 
has reached us no tradition ; but in making inquiries 
in the vicinity where he taught sixty years before, a 
man told us he used to go to his school when a very 
small boy, and too young to be a pupil. He remem- 
bered going " because he liked to;" and the master 
would put him to sleep on a bench with his overcoat 
for the boy's bed. This memory would indicate a 
kind heart toward children, and a reason why he chose 
teaching as his calling. He probably might easily 
have been a sculptor, for we saw on a sandstone 
boulder near where his brother Silas lived, the figure 
of a willow tree in relief, and a lamb at the side of it, 
which he made with the point of a common pickaxe. 
Its history is well authenticated, and the quality of the 
carving as good as would be done by a professional 
stone-cutter with standard tools. Its date is unknown ; 
probably earlier than 1840. 

In the neighborhood of his school on the high lands 
overlooking the Ohio in Grand View township, Henry 
Ellis purchased a plot of land, about 1850, which he 
gave to the people as a burying ground. He selected 
his own place, in the center of the plot, between two 
great oaks ; and was himself the first person to rest 
in the dedicated ground. The oaks and other trees 
have long since disappeared ; and one may now look 
far over the hills of his native county and state, and 
away across the yellow Ohio into what was in his day 
Old Virginia. A house of worship was in later years 
erected on adjoining land, and is now regularly 



Sabra and Sibyl Ellis. 27 

occupied; a landmark resulting from the benefaction 
of Henry Ellis. 

Henry manifestly inherited a tendency to pulmonary 
ailment, and probably anticipated early death. We 
have no particulars, except that he died of hem- 
orrhage, at the home of James Dailey, where he had 
lived for some years possibly, in the neighborhood of 
his school. 

Of Sabra Ellis (40), we have imperfect account, 
not knowing date of birth or death. She came into 
Knox county and taught school in the neighborhood 
of her brother Benjamin, and eventually was married 
there to Andrew Welker. Her life thenceforth was 
said to have been one of poverty and trial, owing to 
the drinking habits of her husband, and she died com- 
paratively young. Her two sons, Oliver and Emmett 
Welker, went to Missouri when young, and have not 
since been known in Ohio. 

We have been shown a tract of land where the 
Welkers once lived, now one of the most fertile in 
the county, which Andrew traded off for a shot-gun. 
It was probably at that time, however, little better 
than a swamp, and may have cost him but a trifle. 

Sibyl Ellis (39), was nine or ten years old when 
the family came to Newport. It was said that she also 
taught school in Knox county, but of this we are not 
certain. It is rather apparent that she was married 
at Newport, and not long after settled in Knox county 
on land adjoining Benjamin Ellis, as is thought, as 
early as 1823. Her husband was Henry Babcock, 
who had been a whaler, voyaging from New Bedford, 
Mass. ; on trips of one to three years. For some 
reason he abandoned the sea, and followed the cooper- 
ing business thenceforth. 



28 The Babcock Family. 

At one time in Babcock's whaling life, he was one 
of a boat's crew that rowed alongside of a mighty 
whale, and at the same moment a harpoon was struck 
into his vitals. Instantly the monster sprang clear of 
the water, bellowing in agony ; and Babcock put his 
hand up against his mountain-like side to push away 
the boat, and his arm was paralyzed for a time by the 
jar of the bellow. Either this whale or another of 
the catch had a mouth so great that the captain had 
his jaws propped open, and upon his enormous tongue 
was placed a platform or table, around which twelve 
men sat and ate their dinner ! And this is not a 
" fish story," for Babcock was a man of veracity, as 
remembered by the Ellis family. How he came to 
be a pioneer in Ohio is not known, but the State got 
a good citizen and Sibyl a good husband by it. 
There seems to have been a strong attachment between 
Babcock and his brother-in-law Benjamin Ellis, for 
they lived in close touch as neighbors for nearly thirty 
years ; first in Harrison township, and later in How- 
ard, near Millwood, from 1835. 

Henry and Sibyl Babcock are said to have lived to 
good age, and are buried in Licking county ; proba- 
bly near Fallsburg, where their son Charles lived for 
many years, and died in his eighties. Like his father, 
he was a cooper ; and he had a considerable family, 
of which we have located but one, Mr. H. E. Bab- 
cock, Tunnel Hill, Ohio. 

The children of Henry and Sibyl Babcock were 
Charles, as mentioned above ; Phebe, who married 
John Campbell near Millwood, and they both died 
there; Electa, who married Moses Humbert and 
had one daughter Marietta, who is married to Rev. 



The Burris Family. 29 

J. L. Snyder of Howard, Ohio ; and Diana, who 
married DeVolt, near Millwood. 

Diana Ellis (41), was married in Matamoras to 
Stinson Burris. Their children, so far as ascer- 
tained, were : 

1. William Burris, who was in the Union army. 

2. Stinson Burris, Jr., also in the Union army. 

One of the brothers was yet living quite recently ; 
whereabouts of their children not ascertained. 

3. Elizabeth Burris, (m. Sheets) ; had two 
daughters, Helen and Anna. 

4. Gabrilla Burris, (m. Ankrom) ; had one 
dau. (m. Cochran). 

5. Ellen Burris, (m. Holland). 

Some of these latter reside in or near Matamoras. 

RuFus Ingalls Ellis (34) seems to have married 
and remained in New York ; probably near Water- 
town. No account of his family has been obtained ; 
but one De Los Ellis came to Grandview and mar- 
ried his cousin Ruth Ingalls Ellis, daughter of Silas 
Ellis (37) ; and he is presumed to have been a son 
of Rufus. He may however, have been a son of 
Martin (35), in addition to those next mentioned. 

Martin Ellis (35) married in New York, and is 
known to have had three children ; Henry Ingalls 
Ellis, Eliza Ellis and Benjamin Ellis : the latter 
being lame or crippled. These all came to Ohio, 
and the first two children remained as noted later. 



JO Silas Ellis Family. 

Silas Ellis (37) settled in Grandview, on the 
Ohio River, between Matamoras and Newport, and 
became a mason and contractor. In that place he m., 
1 81 7, Elinor Dickerson, and nine children were 
born. 

1. Charles D. Ellis, m. Paulina Morgan, left 
I son, I dau., name and location not ascertained. 

Charles D. died of small pox in Cincinnati. 

2. William McGee Ellis, m. Clarissa Ankrom. 
He was like his father, a mason and builder. Chil- 
dren : William P. Ellis, lives in Marietta, O. ; 
Margaret Ellis, (m. Green) ; Rebecca Ellis, 
(m. Williamson) ; and Sibyl Ellis, (m. Rich- 
ardson). 

3. Ruth Ingalls Ellis, m. first her cousin, 
De Los Ellis, and he left one son, Charles M. 
Ellis of Sedan, Kan. Ruth afterward m. Elmer 
Naylor. In her young days she visited her uncle 
Benjamin's family at Millwood, and is remembered 
as a very amiable young lady. 

4. Minerva I. Ellis, m. J. N. Cline ; living in 
Garnett, Kan. Plas three daughters in same state. 

5. 6. AuRELius M. and Aurelia Ellis, twins. 
(The latter died young). Aurelius m. Evaline 
Morgan, descendant of a famous Indian fighter, 
David Morgan, of the i8th century. Ch. : Leander 
A. Ellis, further mentioned elsewhere ; Lafayette 
D. Ellis, Grandview ; Evan W. Ellis, Frankfort, 
Ky., who has four sons, names not known. The 
daughters of Aurelius M. Ellis are Mrs. Sarah E. 
Hutchinson, Grandview, O. ; Mrs. Mary Webber, 



Silas Ellis Family. 31 

East Liverpool, O. ; Mrs. Paulina J. Barnes, Pat- 
erson, N. J. ; Mrs. Bertha P. Kidd, Wellsville, O. 

7. Solon Ellis, died of cholera, Paducah, Ky., 

1853- 

8. Henry M. Ellis, lives at Garnett, Kan. No 
account of family. He and Mrs. Cline are at this 
date the only living children of Silas Ellis (37). 

9. A. M. Ellis, a son, of whom we have no 
account. 

Silas Ellis was a substantial citizen of Grand- 
view , and a man of decided probity and integrity. 
Like his elder brother Benjamin in Knox County, he 
was a Justice of the Peace, and also supervisor of 
highways, and the docket or record books of the two 
brothers are exceedingly alike, and both yellow with 
age. Silas was a good deal of a temperance lecturer 
in school-houses in the time of the Washingrtonian 
movement, and was doubtless influential. His monu- 
ments in the construction of foundations, wells and 
buildings of marked solidity, are yet standing all 
along his vicinity on both sides of the Ohio. It was 
with deep feeling that we visited the hewn log house 
on the bank of the river, where was his home for 
many years, now crumbling to earth, all except the 
big block stone fire-place and chimney. If we under- 
stood rightly, he became interested in river traffic, 
and seems to have been with some of his family in 
Cincinnati in 1849 ; at which time his wife Elinor 
died there of cholera. He himself went further west, 
and died in Syracuse, Mo., in 1861. 

Aurelius M. Ellis and wife lived to good age in 
Grand view township, on the original Dickerson farm, 
and are buried beside his uncle Henry Ellis (43), the 



32 L. A. Ellis Family^ 

teacher and painter. Two of their children remain 
there ; a daughter, Mrs. Hutchinson, on the old Dick- 
erson-Ellis homestead, and a son, Lafayette D. Ellis, 
near by on another farm ; both the homes a little way 
down the river from the old farm of their grandfather 
Silas. " Lafe " is now the " Squire ElHs " of all that 
region, as was Silas eighty years ago. All the 
vicinity, up and down the river is piped and pumped 
for oil, a wealth undreamed of in the early EUis 

days. 

Leander a. Ellis, son of Aurelius, b. 1846, early 
began teaching school over in West Virginia, opposite 
his birth-place in Grandview. A misfortune lamed 
him for life, and he became an educator, teaching for 
more than twenty years, and serving as Superintend- 
ent of Schools for Pleasants County. Was married, 
1875, to Harriett E. Fleming ; engaged in business 
in Crisp, and later at French Creek, now called Pleas- 
ants ; being postmaster in both towns, in Pleasants 
County. He yet resides in the town of Pleasants, 
and continues business, and also his connection with 
the educational interests of the county. 

Children of above : 

1. Archie G. Ellis, 1876; taught schools in West 
Virginia and in Arkansas; was then in mercantile 
life, and later with the Pennsylvania Railroad as 
accountant; and is now in that capacity with the 
Baltimore & Ohio at Sistersville, W. Va. Married, 
1909, to Maude Mallery of Ashtabula Co., O. 

2. Henry G. Ellis, 1879; began teaching at 
eighteen, continuing several years. Then acquired a 
commercial education and is head accountant for a 
firm in Sistersville. Married, 1904, to Mary Smith, 



of West Virginia. 33 

of St. Mary's, W. Va. Two daughters ; Evaline 
and Gladys Ellis. 

3. Barna C. Ellis, 1882; was plasterer in East 
Liverpool, Ohio. Also learned architecture, and 
designed a number of the buildings of that city. 
Removed, 1909, to Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. 
Married Irene Christy of East Liverpool, 1903; 
three sons; Clifford L., William and Harrold 
Ellis. 

4. Charles M. Ellis, 1885; steam engineer at 
Eagleville, Ohio ; formerly in dairying, and sustained 
an injury that nearly cost him his life. Married 
Fannie Pratt of Pleasants county, 1904; three 
children ; Earl, Charley (deceased) , and Effie 
Ellis. 

5. Benjamin L. Ellis, 1888; machinist and 
engineer with Pennsylvania Railroad at Cleveland, 
Ohio; married 1909 to Isadore Pangbaum of 
Geneva, Ohio. 

6. Brook F. Ellis, 1S97 ; student, with parents. 

This is the banner Ellis family of the present 
generation. Hats off, everybody, to Mrs. L. A., and 
all the young Ellis mothers following ! 



The foregoing pages cover substantially all informa- 
tion we have concerning other branches of the family 
than that of Benjamin and Lois Ellis of Millwood. 
To them and their descendants what follows is mainly 
devoted. 



2/1 Benjamin and Lois El/ is, 

The Second Benjamin Ellis Family. 

(36) Benjamin Ellis (Jr.) as previously noted, 
married Lois Palmer at Watertown, N. Y., Dec, 
1 8 15. Their children were : 

(46) Melissa Ellis, 1816; m. Aauon Edgell. 

(47) Cherrill Ellis, 1818 ; m. John Burtnett. 

(48) Alva Palmer Ellis, 182 1 ; m. Margaret 

Sanders, 1844. 

(49) Silas Ellis, 1822; m. Sophia Stenger. 

(50) Albert Ellis, 1S26 ; m. Sarah H. Encell. 

(51) Henry Ellis, 1S28; died 1850. 

(52) Benjamin Ellis, 1830; died 1838. 

(53) Andrew Ellis, 1835; married three times. 

(54) Lyman Ellis, 1S37 ; m. Eliza J. Graham. 

(55) Luther Augustus Ellis, 1840; died 1861. 
Soon after the marriage of Benjamin and Lois, they 

" went West ;" but not at this time to Ohio. Leaving 
Watertown, they came probably by a lake vessel to a 
point in what is now Orleans County, N. Y. ; although 
at that time it was included in Genessee County. 
Thence a few miles inland they came to Ridgeway, 
and located upon forty acres of dense forest land. 

It seems almost certain that on his several journeys 
on foot between Ohio and New York, Benjamin had 
been impressed by the quality of the land in this 
"beech country " or "Genessee country " as they usu- 
ally called it. 

Here began the home-building of these hardy pio- 
neers. Their married life lasted something more 
than forty-two years, and was characterized by peace, 
industry, and in their latter days, by well-deserved 
comfort. Here in the woods the conditions were 



at Ridgeway^ N. T. 35 

exceedingly primitive. The new-comers evidently had 
few personal possessions ; probably but little money 
after buying the land, the cost of which is not known. 
Their first house was built of poles, covered with great 
sections of bark, peeled from the big trees that were 
felled to make a clearing ; an humble home indeed, 
but it was their house, their land, their ho^ne I And 
we are privileged to believe that in all the world there 
was not a more honest, happy home than this. 

A substantial log house soon followed, and the 
incessant labor of the young settler soon cleared 
ground for crops. One winter was often mentioned 
by them in later years, because their food was almost 
wholly limited to potatoes ; all the mills in the country 
about being frozen up, except their own coffee-mill. 

Two daughters were born here ; Melissa and Cher- 
rill or Charilla. (The latter name is said to be taken 
from a book which they had read or possessed. ) 
Whether his growing family was the reason, we 
know not; but Benjamin Ellis now began to look 
further west; and a year following, on July 6, 1819, 
he sold or rather exchanged his forty-acre farm with 
one Allen Neilson, a Revolutionary soldier, for a 
tract of one hundred acres in Harrison township, 
Knox Co., Ohio. The transfer price was named as 
three hundred dollars, which may be regarded as the 
main portion of the accumulation of the three and a 
half years' residence in Ridgeway. Years afterward 
some friend or relative from New York visited Benja- 
min and Lois when they had their third and yet larger 
farm, and said to him : " Ben, that forty acres in 
Ridgeway is worth more today than all your three 
hundred odd acres here !" 



^5 Removal to Ohio. 

It is manifest that the young family was soon on 
the way to their new possession amid the sturdy oaks 
of Ohio. Their effects were conveyed in a small 
cart or wagon, most likely the former ; and their team 
was a pair of young oxen, hardly more than calves.^ 
It is told of these that "they were white as angels," 
a descriptive phrase that must have been from the 
young mother Lois, who was now just twenty-one 
years of age. These white oxen were highly trained 
on the new farm, and when one of them died— a 
great loss to the young couple— the survivor was 
taught to work single, in harness like a horse ; and 
years later, when horses had been grown, the white 
ox would be seen hitched in the lead of them. 

Nearly the whole journey to Ohio was through 
country as yet but sparsely settled, and the roads were 
often but a mere track through the woods. It was, 
however, in the late summer, and the travel was not 
unpleasant. 

On the way, after entering Ohio, a stop was made 
at Zanesville with the Ballou families. It is known 
that the mother, Mehitabel Ballou, was there, and 
with her Eliza, then eighteen, who married Abram 
Garfield two years later. A letter written by her at 
the age of seventy-nine, to Andrew Ellis, refers to 
this visit of her cousin Benjamin at this time, men- 
tioning the young family. She visited also in return, 
at the Millwood farm, some twenty or thirty years later. 
Whether or no Ruth, the mother of Benjamin, was 
yet living at this time is doubtful. Nothing to settle 
the query is now at hand. It must have been just about 
a year after her coming from Newport to Zanesville, 
and she may have been killed during the summer of 



On the Neilson Land. 37 

1819. The question has arisen as to whether the 
two sisters may not have been living together, Mehit- 
abel Ballou and Ruth Ellis ; as Mehitabel had with 
her the one daughter Eliza, and Ruth had but the 
boy Henry. But no mention of this is preserved, so 
far as is now known. 

The young Ellis family was soon on their own 
land in Knox county, and as expressed by one of the 
sons in later years, " they soon chopped out a home." 
All the land — one hundred acres — except a small 
area called " the bear-wallow," was covered with 
heavy upland hardwood; white, black and red oak, 
hickory, walnut, ash and the like. The same amount 
and quality of standing timber would today bring 
many thousands of dollars ; but at that time one of 
the principal objects of the settlers was to get rid of 
most of it. 

This tract of land was " located " or " entered " by 
Allen Neilson on the warrant issued to him, on 
February 22, 1812 ; and by exchange for the Ridge- 
way farm, as we have seen, became the property of 
Benjamin Ellis, July 6, 18 19. 

Experience had by this time made the new owner 
an expert axeman and house-builder ; and a cabin 
soon sheltered the family. It is said that he built 
three more log houses on this land, each in a more 
advantageous location and of larger size, than the one 
preceding. As these were successively vacated by 
the family, they were appropriated to other farm use, 
which were an increasing need each year. The first 
cabin became a sheepfold, and remained in use until 
1850, and perhaps considerably later. Another was 
doubtless made to be a "loom-house," where the 



^8 Pioneer Experiences. 

later stages of warping, dyeing and weaving the flax 
and woolen fabrics for family wear were carried on. 
At a later date, about 1833 or 1834, a comfortable 
frame house was buih, containing six rooms, but a 
few feet removed from the last preceding house, which 
was itself a good dwelling of logs hewed flat and 
smooth inside, perhaps also on the outside. As the 
family included at this time about seven children, 
the older dwelling may have continued in use in part 
for that purpose. 

It is to be remembered that all this house building 
of logs cost little except for the labor. The logs 
for walls, and puncheons or planks for floors and 
doors, and clapboards for roofs, were all furnished 
from the abundant forest ; while stone for foundations, 
fire-place and chimney was on every hand. 

Farm buildings were added as land was cleared 
and crops and stock increased ; heavy rail fences were 
built to enclose all the land, and farm implements 
were made by the aid of the blacksmith, until in time 
the outfit was equal to any in the vicinity. The era 
of improved farm machinery was yet in the future ; 
even the " cradle " for cutting grain was not yet 
invented; the common scythe for grass, and the 
ancient sickle for the grain, did all the harvesting. 
A primitive wooden beam stirring plow did all the 
'•' breaking up," while a single shovel-plow was about 
the only horse implement for cultivating the crops. 
Harrows, hoes, rakes and pitchforks furnished the 
further means of tillage and harvesting ; while the 
threshing out of flax, oats, rye, wheat and buckwheat, 
was with flails or by the "tramping out" of horses and 
oxen. 



Church and School. 39 

At first, the neighl)ors were few and remote ; only 
two were anywhere near, perhaps within a mile or 
so. One of these was named Dudgin, and the other — 
wasn't. But the settlement increased until a school 
was established, and the young generation was 
instructed in " the three R's." Sabra or Sibyl Ellis 
may have taught here, but not likely ; both being 
probably married before that time. 

Nor were the religious needs of the community 
neglected; for at some time between 1825 and 

J 2, a place of worship was established at the east 
jnd of the farm. Benjamin Ellis and his next neigh- 
bor eastward each gave one-half acre of land for a 
burying ground and a place for a meeting house ; 
which latter was built (of logs), somewhere about 
1830. A Sunday school, and more or less regular 
worship was maintained there for about twenty years. 
The writer remembers being in the old log church, 
called " Mt. Tabor," somewhere about 1852, and the 
impression remains that it was little used at that time ; 
though not then fallen into decay. But the house 
and boundaries of the lot have now long since disap- 
peared ; and a few fallen headstones, mostly unde- 
cipherable, are all remaining to mark the place. 
Three Ellis children are buried here ; two who died 
at birth, and " little Benja," who lived eight years, 
dying on the Millwood farm. 

The time of farmer Ellis during these busy years 
was not wholly given to his own affairs. He was 
prevailed upon to serve as Justice of the Peace for 
some years, much against his own will, as we have 
heard said. But his hard-headed good sense, his 
unquestioned fairness, added to by a better schooling 



40 



Farm Sold to Burtnett. 



in his boyhood than most of his neighbors had en- 
joyed, seemed to make him desirable as a Justice, in 
estimation of the community. His duties in that 
capacity were quite varied, as seen by his docket or 
record; trespass, assault, contract, collections, and 
many other actions requiring the official adjudication 
and signature of " Benj. Ellis, J. P." Some cases 
are amusing because of their triviality, and all bear 
witness that human frailties eighty years ago were 
much the same as now. The fees recorded are sur- 
prisingly small, and the office could hardly have been 
sought for financial reasons. 

Having now brought this farm into good condi- 
tion, Benjamin Ellis thought it needful to enlarge his 
domain, to find room for his numerous boys. Meeting 
a fair opportunity, after having lived here for sixteen 
years, on July i, 1835, Benjamin and Lois conveyed 
their second farm to John Burtnett of Coshocton, O., 
for the sum of fourteen hundred dollars, and removed 
some three miles north-eastward. 

The new land constituted what we have called the 
"Millwood farm," and contained three hundred thirty- 
four acres ; of which one of the sons wrote in later 
years, " We cleared every acre of it." The price 
paid was twelve hundred dollars ; a little more per 
acre than the Neilson land had cost sixteen years 
before, and probably of about the same average 
quality. A number of acres was alluvial or "bottom 
land," much more fertile than the uplands, and a fine 
growth of sugar maples covered a part of this river 
land. The new owner being an expert in sugar- 
making, this may have been quite an attraction. 
Besides, there was near by the town of Millwood, 



Removal to Milhvood. 41 

where stores were kept, and where grain was ground 
and lumber sawed ; which conveniences were much 
farther from the former place. 

We have not been told, but we presume that Squire 
Ellis proceeded at once to erect a log dwelling on his 
new land. The elder sons, Alva and Silas, now 
fourteen and thirteen respectively, may have rendered 
some assistance ; but more likely his brother-in-law 
and nearest neighbor, Henry Babcock, joined to help 
him. Babcock shortly followed the Ellis family from 
the neighborhood of the previous farm, taking four 
acres of the land, and building on it a "double" hewn 
log house, about fifty rods from the Ellis house. One- 
half the Babcock house was used for the cooper shop 
by Henry Babcock and his son Charles, who grew 
into the business later. The house is yet standing 
and occupied, nearly seventy-five years after. 

Doubtless the Ellis removal was promptly accom- 
plished, and stables and other necessary accommoda- 
tions provided, that the great work of "clearing" the 
new farm might begin. The fall and winter of 1835-6 
and years succeeding were filled with prodigies of 
labor by the farmer and his sons ; all of whom, with 
a single exception, have now gone to rest. In the 
housekeeping department, the two daughters, now 
nineteen and seventeen, likewise bore their full part, 
as the mother was for a considerable period a great 
sufferer from asthma, and largely incapacitated. In 
order that they might not lose their schooling, Melissa 
and Cherrill for some time did all the heavier work at 
night ; washing and ironing, baking, churning and the 
like ; and we know not what beside of spinning and 
weaving. Melissa afterward became a teacher, but 



42 Millwood Farm; 

Cherrill remained as housekeeper for her mother until 
she was married to John Burtnett Jr., and went to 
her own home on the farm where she had grown up, 
about four years after first leaving it. 

The Millwood farm had more neighbors than the 
preceding one in its first settlement. If we are not 
mistaken, both school and church were already acces- 
sible, but farm life yet contained mostly primitive 
conditions. 

The public road from east to west ran through the 
farm from Millwood to Kinderhook, Gambler and 
Mt. Vernon, over which a horse-rider carried mail 
once or twice a week. Postage stamps and envelopes 
were unknown, and rates on letters were from per- 
haps five to twenty-five cents each, according to dis- 
tance ; and even a weekly newspaper was a luxury. 
The family cooking and heating was by the great fire- 
place, and the light for home and church and out- 
door tin lantern, was mainly the "tallow dip " candle, 
varied by a grease-lamp ; when the fire-light was 
not sufficient. The food was generally abundant and 
good in quality, almost wholly the product of the 
farm. The fields, garden, farmyard and forest, 
fvirnished in the aggregate a variety and quality suf- 
ficient even for an epicure ; and into the midst of 
which the writer hereof was born, ten years after this 
Ellis farm was begun ; and it may safely be said he 
inherited and retained an appetite for good things ! 

Millwood was in those days a lively and aspiring 
place ; "the trading point for a considerable territory 
round about. For a number of years it was accessible 
to the residents on the Ellis side of Owl Creek by a 
ford below the dam. In time of spring freshets and 



Clear i tig the Land. 43 

other high water, the Ellis boys had a great " dug- 
out" canoe with which to visit Millwood. This 
was often an exciting and hazardous experience, as 
the craft would roll and pitch in an alarming manner 
in the swollen waters. It is supposable that the 
parents felt anxious at such seasons, and doubtless 
there were more trips deemed necessary at such 
times than at others, just from the love of adventure. 
Years later, when the writer was the small boy of 
the farm, the old canoe was far up the hillside, used 
as a trough for "salting" cattle and sheep. And 
the other day he stood, nearly sixty years after, upon 
the same spot, and looked down upon the former 
scene of those voyages, and thought of the long ago, 
and those who were then " the Ellis boys." 

After some years, a long wooden bridge was built ; 
and as remembered by the Small Boy, it was the eighth 
wonder of the world. And it was " a good deal of a 
bridge," as somebody said; very long, double tracked 
and shingle-roofed ; made wholly of the best white 
oak, in beams and planks of massive thickness, 
securely pinned together. It cost three thousand dol- 
lars, and it is computed that the oak in it would 
today be worth fifty thousand dollars ! 

As on all such land at that time, a prodigious 
amount of labor was bestowed upon the Ellis farm to 
make it productive. Felling trees, cutting them up, 
grubbing out " stools" and removing stones involved 
a toil fully equal to any that could be named. Much of 
the forest was first gone over and " girdled" with an 
axe, and left a year or so to die out. Such a tract 
was called a " deadening;" and when the trees were 
later cut down, the less valuable, and often many 



44 Millwood Farm; 

of the best, were cut into lengths, rolled together and 
burned. Such a job was called a "log-rolling," and 
neighbors often joined their forces to help each other, 
hence the use of the term in politics. In recent years 
we have seen a first-class oak, such as many of those 
thus burned, valued for its lumber at one hundred 
dollars ; and likely as not a thousand such were thus 
disposed of on this Millwood farm. And yet we 
have heard that the father said to the sons at some 
time later, " Take care of the timber; in a few years 
it will be valuable;" which they then refused to 
believe. But time has shown his statement correct. 

A part of the land first cleared was devoted to the 
growth of fruit trees, and one of the early and most 
lasting memories of the Small Boy is of that orchard. 
It had more kinds of apples, more apples to the tree, 
and more good apples, than any and all other orchards 
he ever saw. At least it seemed so then. There 
were Early somethings to begin on ; then Harvests 
to continue with ; and Pippins, Bellflowers, Ram- 
boes, Gloria Mundi, Vandever, Spice, Russet, Green- 
ing, Nigger, Red Sweet, Bitter Sweet, Penic ; and 
many we may have forgotten ! And then, the 
peaches ! They did not come every year like the 
apples ; but nearly all fence corners had peach trees 
in them; and at least two seasons, 1853-4, brought 
tremendous crops of great luscious clings and free- 
stones, of which the memory yet remains. 

And there were cherries every year ; and such 
cherries! Black Hearts, Oxhearts, Qiieens — just 
bushels of them ; for the several Ellis families that 
were there by that time ; and for friends and neigh- 
bors who came to pick and eat and carry away. 



Maple Stigar Making. 45 

Likewise for the birds ; robins, woodpeckers, sap- 
suckers, blackbirds, jays and yellow-hammers ; but 
how many of them fell by rifle-shot of the Ellis boys ! 

And as to orchards, not the least was that of 
Nature's own plantin<^, the sugar maples on the river 
bottom toward Millwood ; comprising a large number 
of fine trees. It was called "the sugar camp;" a 
term applied in present time to the shack or building 
in the grove where the workers boil the sap. If there 
was such a building in this orchard, there was no 
trace of it left in the day of the Small Boy ; but instead 
there was a " sugar house" near the dwelling, where 
all the "boiling down" and "sugaring off" was 
done. This was a substantial hewn log structure of 
one enclosed room, outside of w hich was an extended 
roof supported by posts, covering the stone furnace 
upon which was placed the evaporating pan. This 
was a rectangular wooden box of eight or ten inches 
depth, with a sheet iron bottom, giving a large sur- 
face exposure to the fire ; and was a great improve- 
ment over the big cast-iron kettles or cauldrons for- 
merly used. The same device was later used when 
"sorghum" was introduced into the United States, 
about 1857-8. 

The maple trees were tapped as early as the sap 
would flow. Two small cuts were made in the form 
of a V, and at the point below, a wide carpenter's 
gouge was driven into the wood, and into this cut a 
" spile " was driven, which conveyed the sap off into 
" sugar troughs," or sap troughs. These were made 
of half a small log of perhaps two feet length, with 
the middle hollow^ed out to hold two or three gallons. 
Many a time has the Small Boy gone down on " all 



^6 Millwood Farm; 

fours " at one of these troughs, and had a fill of that 
cold, sweet " sugar water." And many a time in 
mid-winter has he coasted down an icy hill in one of 
those same sugar-troughs like a land canoe, from 
want of a sled. O you steel-shod, fancy painted wind 
splitters of later days, you can never beat that boy m 
cap and mittens and red comforter, in a polished bot- 
tom sugar-trough, coming down those Ohio hills ! 

The "water" was gathered into large barrels, on 
a drag or sled, and drawn by horses to the sugar- 
house. It was fortunate if snow remained to make 
the going easy ; but regardless of that in his day, the 
Small Boy had many a ride, listening to the sap 
" plunking" in the barrels. At the sugar-house these 
were rolled off on skids, over a big tank ; when the 
square bung was taken out and the sweet sap went 
thundering down into the depths. 

The " boihng down" and "sugaring off" were 
dulcet times for young folks; sometimes extending 
into the night. Maple taffy -pullings were favorite 
occasions, and not many farms had the accessories, as 
did the ElHs place. The amount of syrup and sugar 
made year by year must have been considerable ; 
some at least being sold or traded to non-producers 
round about. 

One " sugaring off" — and the last of which the 
Small Boy has a remembrance — was in the daytime, 
when he and his young uncle, Luther, then about 
thirteen, were left for a time in charge to keep it boil- 
ing. It was good fun for a time, to run through 
the steam as it rolled off to one side ; but presently it 
became whiter and denser, and choked and blinded 
them, for it was smoke ! And before they realized 



Fences and Buildings. 47 

what was the matter, the whole contents of the pan 
burst into flame, and in response to their cries the 
men came running and lifted off the burning mass. 
It is remembered further only, that the old farmer 
said, "We have lost about thirty pounds of sugar." 

The fences and buildings on the Millwood farm 
were substantial and ample. The fences were nearly 
all of the zig-zag or " Virginia" sort ; white oak rails 
mostly, six or seven rails high, and "staked and 
ridered " atop ; so that hardly any domestic animal 
but a cat, could get over or through them. It was 
probably this sort of fence of which a witness testi- 
fied, somewhere in the fifties; " It was a Buncombe 
fence, sir." And the court inquired, "What does 
the witness mean by a Buncombe fence?" "A Bun- 
combe fence, your Honor, is one that is bull strong, 
horse high and pig tight ! " 

The work of constructing such a fence was large, 
but it was durable ; and though none such are now 
built, many are yet standing in which are rails full 
fifty years old. 

The dwelling and other buildings were at first all 
of the log cabin or hewn log variety. But ere long 
others were added, made from lumber sawn at Mill- 
wood. The largest of these was a barn of very con- 
siderable dimensions, erected somewhere about 1840, 
the main part of which is yet standing. It is of 
almost remarkable solidity ; the sills, posts and beams 
are large, hand-hewn of the best white oak ; double- 
braced, mortised and pinned together as if to with- 
stand a tornado. It was one of the chief resorts of 
the Small Boy ; climbing the great stringer beams and 
turning summersaults off them into the sweet hay, or 



^8 Millwood Farm; 

helping to pack away the sheaves of grain to await 
threshing time. 

The first house on the Millwood farm was super- 
seded ere long by a larger one, and to which an addi- 
tion was made some years later. For the first time 
the family now had a cellar, by no means a common 
convenience in those days. But that cellar ! Why, 
it was where the apples were kept in the winter ! The 
smell of those apples, 'm-'m-'m ! Talk to a Small 
Boy if you must, about Ceylon's isle, and Araby the 

blest. But, ! 

This house had a yet larger fire-place and chimney 
than the preceding one. Big backlogs, that seem on 
memory's tablet to have been not less than two feet 
through, were " walked in" early at night, and nested 
in the ashes against the fireplace back wall; then 
there was a smaller top log put on, v/ith a forestick on 
the great andirons. Then with the smaller wood 
added, what a great fire there was, filling the big 
room with comfort ; and before which sat at tiines, 
the parents, two daughters and seven sons ; and there 
was not a black sheep among them ! 

All the accessories of a thrifty home were gathered 
on this Ellis farm. The older dwelling became the 
"loom house," where the family cloth was made; 
and here afterward, with the coming of a new gene- 
ration, the ubiquitous Small Boy helped his own 
mother in the various minor processes of winding, 
reeling and quilling yarns for weaving into flannels, 
linens and linsey-woolseys. There too was the spring- 
house, where the milk was set in a wide, stone-bot- 
tomed bed, with the cold water flowing an inch or 
two deep among the crocks, so that no ice was ever 



Boyhood Memories . 49 

needed ; here was the churning done and the cheese 
ripened. 

The brick "out-oven" under a roof of its own 
was used once a week or oftener, for the much bread 
and many pies and cakes needed. The quantity of 
such consumed by a half-dozen lusty boys would 
astonish an inexperienced housekeeper. 

Then there was the house used both for smoking 
meat and drying fruit; generally called the "dry 
house." When smoking of hams was to be done, 
fire was outside several feet away, and the smoke 
passed under ground into the house, with very little 
heat. But when fruit was to be dried, a hot fire was 
kept in a "ten-plate" box stove; and as we remem- 
ber the way it felt in there, the temperature must 
have been anywhere up to 500 degrees. The fruit 
was spread on wide trays, which rested on stout pins 
driven in the log walls. 

There was also the bee-house, of which the Small 
Boy was discreetly shy ; and the corn-house and 
wagon shelter ; containing also the work -bench and 
tools for carpentering and repair work. Beyond these 
were the stables and sheep-folds, and no stock was 
without a comfortable shelter. 

There was one other building for storage near the 
dwelling, called " the barrel house." Its principal 
contents were some of the farm and household sup- 
plies, mostly in barrels; as salt, soap, rosin, pine tar, 
lime and the like. The memory of house and con- 
tents had long since faded from the Small Boy's 
mind ; when one day in passing through a wholesale 
street in Boston, suddenly a vision of the old barrel- "^ 

4 r 



^o The Nexv York Visit. 

house flashed before hun as though painted on a can- 
vas. Startled and amazed, he stopped and wondered, 
until after some moments he recognized that the vision 
of memory was caused by the fragrance of fine tar 
barrels in a ware-house he was passing ! 

At some time not long after the Ellis family came 
to this their new home, Henry Babcock came also, as 
previously noted, and established his cooper-shop. 
He may have had relatives at Newport, and with his 
wife Sibyl he may have also gone there to visit Silas, 
Diana, and Henry ; but in any event, on his return 
he brought with him a young cooper named Aaron 
Edgell, perhaps to work for him. The result was an 
acquaintance and marriage with Melissa Ellis in 1837 ; 
followed by the departure of the young pair to New- 
port, which was ever afterward their home. 

Two years later, the second and only remaining 
daughter Cherrill, was married to John Burtnett, Jr., 
and went back to her new home on the " old farm." 
Nearly the whole of their married life was spent 
there; and their only remaining son, Martin Ellis 
Burtnett, is now living there. 

In the summer of 183S, after the wheat harvest and 
" laying by " the corn, Benjamin and Lois Ellis went 
on horseback to visit relatives about Zanesville, and 
thence to Watertown. They made the trip partly 
or largely because of the frail condition of Lyman, 
then about a year old ; the doctor telling them it would 
probably save his life. He was carried by the mother 
on a pillow in front of her ; and was benefitted or 
entirely restored by the journey. 

This visiting trip occupied six weeks, and evidently 
included the Palmers, parents of Lois, and probably 



A Fa^nily Affliction. 51 

some others of her family ; and if Rufus and Martin 
Ellis were in that region, they were no doubt also 
visited. On their return, if we have learned rightly, 
they went to Newport to seethe young Edgell family, 
and Benjamin's brothers Silas and Henry, and sister 
Diana. 

But distressing news reached the father and mother 
on their return journey, probably at Newport. They 
learned that "little Benja," eight years old, was ill 
or already dead, of dysentery ; and on their arrival, 
he had been buried some days. The whole family 
was in the deepest affliction, for he seemed to have 
been a favorite ; and was remembered as of " beauti- 
ful features and complexion, with dark eyes, and 
brown curling hair." Doubtless the parents felt that 
though they had saved one child's life, they had lost 
another ; and that perhaps had they been at home 
they could have saved him. But they had the assur- 
ance of the elder children that the medical attend- 
ance and nursing were all that could have been 
rendered by the parents themselves. One thing, 
however, must have sorely tried them. On their 
departure they left a young woman as a helper for 
Cherrill, now twenty years old, to care for the house- 
hold during their absence. In order to better control 
the young boys, this girl would tell them "bugaboo" 
stories, which had an effect on one of them at least, 
so that in all his after life he was timid in the dark. 
If she had no better judgment in caring for a sick 
child, than in such story telling, her help may have 
been altogether for the worse. Poor little Benja ! 
The father told years afterward, how he stood look- 
ing on wistfully as they mounted their horses for the 



^2 Work and Play, 

journey, and saying, " May I go too, daddy?" The 
last time they ever heard his voice ! 

Not many details of farm work are here given, but 
the story is told in a general term, " hard work." 
" Clearing a farm " is a term of vague significance to 
one of the present generation, but to those who did it, 
it was the embodiment of the severest toil. Cutting 
off acre after acre of trees, many of them two feet or 
more in diameter, sawing them into lengths for rails, 
lumber or burning ; reducing logs to rails, and tree- 
tops to fire wood and brush heaps ; this was a large 
preliminary to cultivation. Not less laborious was 
the " grubbing out " of the smaller saplings and 
"stools;" for vmtil this was done there was little 
room for cultivation between the big stumps. 

But farm life had its resting spells and diversions, 
and work itself had its enjoyable features. Sugar 
making, sheep washing and shearing; haying and 
harvesting, apple gathering and cider making ; these 
and other features of the yearly round had each their 
portion of fun for the young, and relaxation perhaps 
for the elders. Huskings and apple-parings were 
occasions for neighborhood gatherings at night; 
while the debating society, the singing school and the 
spelling match in the log school house, drew together 
the young blood from a larger territory. Many a 
man and woman of mark in later years had their 
early experiences in these wholesome gatherings. 

There were also sports at hand for leisure moments, 
for both small boys and large boys, at school and on 
the farm. At noon time and after supper, a few 
minutes were often found for " pitching horse-shoes," 
or a ball game of " two cat " or " three cat," accord- 



at Home and School. 53 

ing to the number of boys available. " Running 
jump," " standing jump," " pole jump," " hop-skip- 
and-jump," racing and "rassling;" all gave variety 
and exercise, were any needed after the day's work 
and " chores " of feeding stock, milking and the like. 
In the winter there was skating and "shinny," 
besides "straw rides" in big sleds; and well to do 
young men aspired to a "cutter" sleigh in which to 
take out their " best girl." 

At school, the leading game for the larger boys 
especially was "town ball," played by chosen "sides," 
and having many features of modern base-ball, of 
which it was undoubtedly the progenitor. " Anteny 
over" was played by boys and girls together, over 
the schoolhouse roof. Then there was "bull-pen" 
and "sock-ball," — much the same — for big boys 
only ; the merit of which was in hitting the fellow 
on the other side the hardest possible throw with the 
ball, involving a Spartan test of "enduring hardness 
as a good soldier." The old saying of "sock it to 
'em " seems to have come down from that hard game. 

There was also "black man" for boys and girls 
of moderate size ; and for small boys only, what was 
called " dosf." And one of the ineffaceable recoUec- 
tions of the Small Boy is of one summer day when 
he was the only boy at school, and there was no 
other with whom he could play " dog" ! 

But on the farms there was sometimes a day off for 
the big boys and their fathers, that may have an- 
swered to quilting bees and the like for the girls and 
the mothers. These would take form as a bee-tree 
hunt, a 'coon party, or a fox dig-out ; or maybe a 
day's fish-seining in the river. And was not the 



CA Fishin" and Swiinniin' . 

Small Boy allowed to " go along," and was not the 
fun and the game the greatest on earth ? 

And there were two things then, as now, that 
could not be denied to any small boy; " fishin' an' 
swimmin' !" He could get his own lithe fish-pole, and 
a flax-line with the help of his mother ; then a bullet- 
sinker, and a pin hook if he could do no better, and 
that boy was fixed ; he could fish ! Early as may be, 
when the spring " fresh" had subsided and there was 
a chance for a bite, he was eager to try his luck. 
Little cared he for politics or business, for chores or 
school, for home or heaven, could he but feel a 
nibble ! 

Then came the warmer days and warmer water, 
until after many teasings of his mother, the boy gets 
leave to "go swimmin'." He always wants to be 
the first to try it, and despite goose-flesh and chatter- 
ing teeth, he says, " Why, the water is just as warm !" 
And later, when it is a real joy to be in the warmer 
water, he wants to go often, and the mother feels 
constrained to establish a limit. Now, what boy can 
bear to hear his rival boast, " I've been in five times 
today !" while he has been himself limited to three 
times ? And so there may have been transgressions 
in those days ; and it was told of some boy that he 
came in to supper, and was charged with having vio- 
lated the statute of limitation, which was not admit- 
ted. " Then how is it your shirt is wrong side out?" 
Stunned and abashed, he finally recovered and said, 
" Why, I must a done it climbin' over the fence !" 

The larger boys always had guns for such game as 
abounded, and often in clearing and plowing, there 
might be a shot at a toothsome squirrel or marauding 



Silas and Henry Ellis. 55 

hawk. A dog was always ranging the fields where 
the Ellis men worked ; and a large family cat accom- 
panied them in field and woods, as general super- 
visor. He was of great dignity, and not disposed to 
notice small affairs. At one time, while overseeing 
the felling of a tree, he was seated with his back 
toward a brush-heap, under which the dog was snort- 
ing and barking after game. Presently a frightened 
bis: buck-rabbit shot from beneath the brush and 
knocked the " Judge " end over end several feet ; but 
when he righted himself, he had the rabbit ! 

The bottom-land along the river was very fertile, 
and was early cleared, except a fringe of giant 
sycamores on the bank; which remained well into 
the recollection of the writer. Later years have seen 
much of this alluvial soil carried away by high water, 
and much more covered by the wash of sand and 
gravel from the hills. We are now paying the pen- 
alty in many states, for the slaughter of our primeval 

forests. 

When the sons of Benjamin Ellis came of age, they 
were not all content to remain on the farm. Alva 
P., the eldest, married and built a house a few rods 
from his father, \\here the Small Boy was born, 
which accounts for his presence on so many occasions 
in this narrative ; and here the new family remained 
for ten years. Albert also married and lived most of 
the time for several years in the house built by his 
uncle Henry Babcock, who had removed to Licking 
county. This house was on land sold to Babcock by 
Squire Ellis, and bought back again on his removal. 

Silas Ellis learned the gunsmith trade of Sam StuU 
in Millwood, and soon went to Zanesville, among the 



56 Alva and Henry 

Ballou cousins. He was married there and then 
settled at his trade in Adamsville, a few miles away, 
and remained until 1856, when he emigrated to Boone, 
Iowa. 

Henry left the farm at the age of twenty-one, and 
joined Silas in gunsmithing ; but a few months later, 
early in 1850, Alva persuaded him to go with himself 
and others to California ; where gold could be had 
almost for the picking up ! 

The departure of that party is one of the early but 
distinct recollections of the Small Boy. The doubt- 
ful, anxious, but half-hopeful parents of the two 
departing sons, and the crying young mother with 
us three little ones, in contrast with the eager gold- 
seekers ; this may better be imagined than described. 
This was in April, and the party of five or more 
arrived at Marysville, Cal., in September, and in a 
few weeks Henry died of typhoid fever. 

There is but a fragmentary record of this overland 
journey ; by mule teams from St. Louis, across the 
unsettled alkali plains and mountain ranges. Pro- 
visions became scarce and feed for mules limited, and 
the greatest courage was necessary to keep going. 
At one time they were very short of supplies and 
hungry, when at very long range a large antelope was 
seen. A hurried conference resulted in Henry Ellis 
being chosen to make the shot. " Well," said Henry, 
" I can try ;" and quickly but steadily brought down 
to level his heavy rifle — his own manufacture — then 
a flash, and a second later the buck dropped! Then 
there was a wild shouting and throwing of hats ; for 
this gave them venison to carry them nearly through. 

The California experience was not financially 



in California. 57 

profitable to Alva Ellis ; though he brought home a 
few hundred dollars at the end of nearly two years. 
Placer digging was practically all that was open to 
men without capital, and few men "struck it rich." 
For awhile at one time he worked for some one on a 
"venture" at a dollar a day, there being nothing 
better in sight. In one of the remote mountain dig- 
gings, where he was for a time, the price of nearly 
every article of food was a dollar a pound ; flour, 
pork, beans, coffee, sugar, salt — all at the one price. 
Everything was brought into the mines on wagons or 
pack-mules from Sacramento, having been first 
brought to San Francisco via Panama or Cape Horn. 
Fortunately for the miners in the mountains, there 
was plenty of game, and venison and bear meat 
helped out many a lean camp. The mountain air 
was so dry and pure that the fresh meat would hang 
in the shade indefinitely, and dry up without tainting. 

The most hopeful enterprise in which Alva Ellis 
engaged, was in a company formed to dam the 
Feather River, and turn the water into a new chan- 
nel, so as to get the gold in the river bed. He was 
a prodigy of strength, and seemed to be the only 
Ohio man in this company ; and it was common for 
some one to sa}^, when a particularly heavy log or 
stone was to be handled: "Make room there, and 
let Ohio get hold of it!" 

But a freshet broke the dam, and with it the larger 
expectations of this Ohio miner. He had been long- 
ing for home, and this was a turning point. Having 
saved up a considerable bag of " dust," he figured 
that he had enough to pay his return via " the isth- 
mus," and have moderate wages left ; so about No- 



58 A Railroad Project. 

vember, 1851, he took passage on a vessel called 
" Gen. Wool." The voyage v^as sluggish, w^ith 
calms and head w^inds, and the vessel poorly pro- 
visioned ; but finally he arrived at and crossed the 
isthmus ; thence by a steamer to New Orleans, from 
which by river boat to Cincinnati, and soon there- 
after, in February, 1852, he was back to his native 
county. 

Meantime it must have seemed disappointing if not 
discouraging to farmer Benjamin Ellis, now in his 
sixtieth year, to have three of his grown sons away 
from him, and one of them soon dead. Albert 
remained, as noted, and the younger boys, Andrew, 
Lyman and Luther, aged fifteen, thirteen and ten ; 
these constituted his working force. But in the fifteen 
years just passed, the farm had been well established, 
and a good measure of comfort and independence 
prevailed. 

About 1850-53 there was developed a railroad 
project, to run from some point west of Knox 
county, through Mt. Vernon and down the river 
through the Ellis farm to some point eastward, per- 
haps Coshocton, on the Ohio Canal. To aid the 
enterprise, farmer Ellis mortgaged half his farm and 
bought stock in it ; but the road was never completed ; 
some grading and the like being done in Delaware 
county, and it became a total loss. Millwood sank, 
as it were, into the ground ; instead of becoming a 
railroad town ; and many a castle in the air vanished 
" like the mist before the sun." 

The mortgage inheritance from this " slump " was 
the burden of Benjamin Ellis' remaining years, and 
doubtless shortened his life. What would have been 



" Uncle Martht" Ellis. 59 

a comfortable old age, was one filled with anxiety 
and effort to pay interest and redeem his land. And 
he had plenty of company in it, among his neighbors. 

" Uncle Martin " Ellis, next older brother to 
Benjamin, made two or more visits to the Millwood 
farm, from 1837 to 1S53. He had lived in New 
York until perhaps about 1843 ; when, being a wid- 
ower, he came to Ohio, having with him on one visit 
a lame or crippled son, Benjamin. Two other 
children came ; Henry Ingalls Ellis, who taught 
school in Knox county, became a physician, and 
married a Miss Mulford ; and Eliza Ellis, who taught 
school in Licking county, and was married there to 
Dr. Paramore. Dr. Ellis lived for a time in Mill- 
wood, then joined practice with Dr. Paramore in St. 
Louisville, Licking county ; but later removed to 
Chicago. One daughter is remembered, probably 
the only child. The Paramores, with two or more 
children, later removed to some town in Illinois. 

An amusing incident is remembered as occurring 
at the marriage of Eliza and Dr. Paramore. It was 
a church affair with a "full house ;" and the dignified 
Baptist clergyman had just pronounced that part of 
the service which says, " if any persons know of any 
reason why," etc., "let them now make it known, 
or ever after hold their peace." At 'this juncture, 
after a momentary pause, a solemn individual arose 
in the audience and, as if in discharge of a grave 
public duty, announced, " I presume, parson, there 
are no objections !" and solemnly sat down, amid 
many smiles. The ceremony then proceeded to its 
conclusion. 

It seems probable that "uncle Martin" Ellis had 



6o ''Old Biliy Smith, 

other and older children left in New York, but of 
this we have no account whatever. Neither do we 
know that he had a home in Ohio ; but it rather would 
appear that after the coming of the before-mentioned 
children to Ohio, he returned to New York and lived 
there. He was about sixty years old when the Cali- 
fornia gold fever broke out, and started from where 
he was to some eastern port, either Boston or New 
York, to ship via " the Horn" for the mines; but 
slipped and broke his hip on an icy sidewalk, and 
went no further. He was afterward at his brother 
Benjamin's in 1853 or '54, and walked with a cane, 
as we distinctly remember. It is probable that he 
and the children mentioned visited with the family of 
his uncle Ebenezer Ingalls, in Hebron, south of 
Newark, but of this we have no tradition ; and 
neither do we remember any mention in the Benja- 
min Ellis family of those Ingalls relatives, though 
they were hardly more than fifty miles away. 

It was not the purpose of this narrative to introduce 
any other than those connected with the Ellis line ; 
but in the neighborhood was a character so unique 
and widely known that we must be pardoned the 
digression. His name was probably William at first, 
but his fame in all later time was by the name of 
Billy Smith. -He was an expert angler, and we have 
just one memory of meeting him with rod and basket 
on the Millwood road, and he kindly stopped and 
showed us boys the fish he had just caught above the 
dam. As remembered, he looked exceedingly like 
the pictures we have seen of Daniel Webster in 
farmer costume at Marshfield ; a wide hat, loose coat, 
and heavy boots. But his resemblance and his fame 



the Ohio Munchatisen . 6i 

were not of statesmanship, nor yet of fishing ; but that 
he was " the monumental liar of Ohio !" And it is 
doubtful if any other American state ever produced 
an equal of this modern Munchausen ; whose extrava- 
gantly absurd and inimitable yarns filled a place 
which none other dared to claim. For a half cen- 
tury since, we have from time to time met in public 
prints, reproductions and perversions of these mar- 
vellous recitals, W'hich we first had heard attributed 
to Billy Smith ! His fertility and audacity were 
astounding, and he would tell these preposterous 
stories, often at his own expense, with such serious- 
ness that he seemed actually to believe them. 

Billy was a " church member," and in good stand- 
ing except for this one characteristic. It was related 
that out of respect for public opinion he was finally 
cited to appear before the church ofiicials, and 
humbly acknowledged his fault, saying in part, " I 
know it's wrong, bretheren, and I've talked over it, 
and I've prayed over it, and I've cried over it ; why, 
I've shed just barrels of tears I" 

It is believed that the " bretheren " let him go as 
easily as they could, privately acknowledging him as 
incorrigible. He is said to have lived to be very old ; 
and on returning from Millwood to his farm on foot 
in the evening, was overtaken by a cold rain, lost 
his way and perished by the roadside, not far from 
home. Poor old Billy ! We know not if a stone 
marks his grave and commemorates his fame ; but he 
shall have at least this word of remembrance. 

One of the later improvements of the Millwood 
farm was the " water-telegraph," installed in 1S53. 
This was a device for bringing water from the spring 



62 Modern Improvements. 

to the door or porch of the house, without going down 
the declivity and bringing it by hand. The idea and 
work were from Silas, who came from Adamsville to 
visit his former home ; and its essential features were 
a taut heavy wire, supported on posts carrying curved 
steel fingers which touched and upheld the under 
surface of the wire ; and a trolley hung upon the wire 
with the carrying bucket attached underneath. The 
trolley would easily run down the wire, and the 
bucket, dipping full, was drawn back to the house by 
an attached cord, wound on a wheel. This was a 
great curiosity to many, and remained in use perhaps 
fifteen years. The stone trough made for this pur- 
pose to receive the spring water, finally broke in two 
and was taken out many years later. 

Another labor-saving device was introduced per- 
haps a year earlier; namely, a horse-power wood- 
sawinsr machine. We think that Silas Ellis had 
talked up this idea also ; anyway we remember his 
being present when it was in operation. When first 
it was discussed, the 'Squire said, " Well, I'll give 
ten dollars toward it." Then Alva and Albert 
" chipped in " if we rightly remember, and John 
Burtnett contributed the use of the horse-power of 
his threshing-machine. The circular saw, shaft and 
balance-wheel were ordered somewhere, and all the 
frame and other wood-work was home-made, and 
well made, mainly we think, by Andrew ; who was 
already a good mechanic, though but about seventeen 
at the time. With a pair of horses hitched to each 
of the four " sweeps," there was ample power, and 
a day's work at the house of each of the partners 
would cut a whole winter's wood into desired lengths ; 



Threshing Time. 63 

an immense saving over the ordinary cutting with the 
axe. At that time, it is doubtful if there was another 
such apparatus in the whole county. 

There was another innovation or improvement that 
came in about the same period, viz., cider-making. 
From time immemorial, apples had been hauled away 
to some water power, and there made into cider. 
But some one said, " Let's make our own cider." 
And so a mill and press were made then and there, 
and many a barrel was thenceforth had at first hand, 
without the benefit or encouragement of a protective 
tariff. And such cider as that was ! ! 

Until about 1850 the grain thresher and separator 
was unknown. From earliest history the beating out 
by flail, or treading out by the feet of horses and oxen 
had been universal ; and many a time after the above 
date did the Small Boy lend his presence to work of 
this kind on the main floor of the big barn. But 
machinery w^as coming in to supplant the primitive 
methods ; and perhaps during the '40's was brought 
out the threshing machine, or * 'chaff -piler" as it was 
afterward called. This was run by horse-power, 
and its essential feature was the iron-toothed cylinder 
w^hich beat out the grain and threw it and straw and 
chaff into a common heap. After this the straw was 
raked away and the chaff and grain separated by a 
fanning-mill, which was also a modern device. But 
American invention soon combined the two machines ; 
and we think John Burtnett was one of the first to 
introduce it into Knox county. 

" Thrashing-time" was thenceforth a big day for 
the Small Boy in the big barn. He was large enough 
to help get sheaves from remote parts of the big mow 



64 Going to Jelloway. 

toward the machine, or to help in some other small 
way. The men generally had a wet sponge tied over 
nose and mouth to keep out the dust ; but there was 
no protection for the ears, and the noise was great. 
The machine was one of the original " knocker " 
build, and we think the men all liked the racket as 
well as the boys ; and we remember John Burtnett, 
who " fed " the machine, and was son-in-law, or 
brother-in-law or uncle to all the crowd, asking us 
small fry, "Don't your ears ring?" 

In their religious responsibilities, Benjamin and 
Lois Ellis are remembered as unobtrusive, yet faith- 
ful and conscientious. They had been early instru- 
mental in the establishment of public worship on 
their first Ohio farm, as will be remembered ; and 
when settled on the Millwood place they became fac- 
tors there in the church affairs. It is said they were 
quietly but firmly attached to their denomination, and 
looked with strong disfavor on all others. But at a 
time, somewhat earlier than the writer's recollection, 
there chanced that way on some errand, a homespun 
preacher of another school than their own. It was 
near time for supjDer, and he was invited to eat with 
the family, for Christian courtesy was stronger than 
denominational prejudice. The conversation became 
interesting, soon involving features of the visitor's 
doctrinal teaching; and hour after hour passed in 
reading the Scriptures and discussion, until morning 
came without their having slept at all ! Afterward 
we heard of the father's saying, " We ought to have 
heard these things long ago." 

Thenceforth, and ever after the writer's recollec- 
tion, the family church-home and burial place was 



The Country Church. 65 

at the " Jelloway meeting-house," some three or four 
miles northwesterly ; and thither in all passable 
weather on Sundays, a delegation went from the Ellis 
farm. Parents and children, representing three gen- 
erations, went in wagons and on horse-back, some at 
times, and sometimes all. There were very few 
carriages then ; we do not remember one that came 
to that meeting. But there were horses, horses, 
horses ; such numbers of whinnying horses, tied to 
the oak trees, and having a meeting of their own ! 

Here was a gathering of a considerable number of 
families of thrifty, hardy farmers, of whom Benja- 
min Ellis was a worthy sample. Some were men of 
no small ability, and nearly all were of strong char- 
acter. There were public speakers often present, of 
their own plain, hardy type ; mighty in the scriptures, 
and knowing far less of other books than is now 
thought necessary. Among these was the writer's 
own maternal grandfather, Benjamin Sanders, whose 
local and itinerant ministry extended over a consider- 
able portion of Ohio, during some twenty years. 
The worship here was simple, dignified, devout, and 
its influence wholesome ; to be carried thence by 
some to distant places. Here were Drakes, Dawsons, 
Critchfields, Cassils, McFarlands, Moodys, McElroys, 
Grahams, Spindlers, Encells, EUises and others ; but 
a half century later we find only their headstones ; 
and the meeting no longer held there, but in the town 
of Howard. The present house is, however, in good 
repair, and a memorial meeting is annually held there 
by the descendants and others. 

These pages are written not more to preserve to 
posterity the genealogical record of the Ellis-Palmer 

5 



66 Last Days. 

line, than to narrate in brief outline the story of a 
plain hardworking pioneer couple of Ohio, in the 
first half of the nineteeth century. By their industry 
and fidelity they made themselves a home, and a place 
in the community second to none in all the country 
about. There is no thought of eulogy or over-praise ; 
but a simple testimony to sterling worth. Neither of 
this couple perhaps ever thought that any descendant, 
at any time later, would be sufficiently interested to 
make their life the subject of even this little history. 
But the end of their labors was approaching, and 
when not yet having reached the allotted three-score 
and ten, they entered into rest. While two sons yet 
remained with him, the father's health began to fail, 
about 1856; and in something less than two years, 
perhaps, he died peacefully; March 17, 1S58. His 
last words were, " I have all confidence in God, and 
know all is well with me." 

The mother, some six years younger, continued 
with the two younger sons in the home ; they and the 
next older, Andrew and Albert, near by, working the 
farm. Luther, the youngest, began to break down, 
and died in 1S61, aged nearly twenty -two. The same 
year, Albert and Lyman entered the volunteer army, 
the one as lieutenant and the other as sergeant in the 
65th Ohio. This left Andrew alone on the farm 
with his mother, so he made his home with her as we 
remember, until her death, March 14, 1864. Albert 
returned in broken health within two years after his 
enlistment, and Lyman, on a furlough, returned 
after two years' service ; so the mother lived to see 
both at home. 



The Aaron Edgell Family. 67 

The Benjamin Ellis Descendants. 



It will be in order now to follow the several families 
of the children of Benjamin and Lois Ellis, in suffi- 
cient detail that an intelligible record may be had for 
present reading and future reference. 

In the order of age of the children above mentioned, 
we have first ; 



The Aaron Edgell Family. 



(53) Aaron Edgell, ] married at Millwood 
(43) Melissa Ellis, j Oct. 12, 1837. 

Children : 

(54) Benjamin Ellis Edgell, b. Newport, Ohio, 

Nov. 8, 1839. 

(55) Henry Ellis Edgell, b. Newport, Ohio, 

Apr. 27, 1842. 

Benjamin E. Edgell was in the 129th Ohio for 
about one year ; and later became a Methodist clergy- 
man, and married Louise Dawson of Knox county, 
Dec. 18, 1867. After serving several pastoral charges 
in Pennsylvania, he was appointed missionary to 
China for three years, returning in 1876. After a 
ministry In California, the couple returned to their 
native state, and have now completed more than forty 
years of active pastoral work. For some years their 
home has been in Oberlin, Ohio, and Mr. Edgell is 
in charge of the endowment fund of his Conference, 
for the benefit of superannuated ministers. There are 
no children. 



68 Aaro7t Edgell Family. 

Henry E. Edgell has always lived on the farm 
where he was born in Newport. He was married 
Feb. 19, 1861, to Amanda Gregory; and five chil- 
dren were born to them : 

(i) Elmer E. Edgell, 1861 ; married Lou 
Beach, 1893. 

(2) Clarence Benj. Edgell, 1866; married 

Lola Odgin, 1890. 
Children: Ruth A.; Mary L. ; Helen; 
Ogdin. 

(3) Nellie Melissa Edgell, 1872. 

(4) Fairman Ross Edgell, 1879. 

(5) Thomas M. Edgell, 1887; married Rose 

Felter, 1908. 

Henry E. Edgell's sons are, like himself, connected 
with the petroleum industry which abounds in that 
region. An oil pumping station is located on his 
farm, to which oil is piped from adjacent wells, and 
then forced eastward across the Ohio river toward the 
refineries ; and natural gas is wholly used for fuel 
and lighting. 

The Edgell ancestry was English ; the John Edgell 
sons settled in Licking county, Ohio ; and one of 
these, Robert Edgell, born 1775, came to Newark, 
1806. Seven children were born, of whom Aaron 
was the second, in 181 1; and in 1820 the family 
came to Newport. The father lived until 1865, the 
last twelve years with his son Aaron and wife Melissa. 

The married life of Aaron and Melissa Edgell has 
always been remembered as one of marked devotion 
and felicity. In the presence of others, and in what- 
ever each wrote concerning the other, there was always 



John Burtnett Fajnily. 69 

the kindest consideration and appreciation ; so that 
for more than half a century they maintained an ideal 
home life. Their golden wedding was celebrated in 
1887 ; and although in failing health in later years, 
they remained in active intercourse with friends and 
relatives to the last. They v^^ere moderately prosper- 
ous, and welcomed many kindred ; and themselves 
visited frequently in return. Their housekeeping, if 
we mistake not, began in the cabin home built for his 
mother by Benjamin Ellis, Melissa's father, in 18 12 or 
'13; and there they dwelt until 1853, when a large 
and convenient house was erected, which is yet stand- 
ing, and there their days ended. She died in May, 
1890, and the affection of the husband shown in her 
sepulture was as marked as that always manifested 
during her life. He survived her about two years, to 
the age of eighty -one. 



The John Burtnett Family. 

Charilla Ellis (47) wasm. to John Burtnett 
Jr., at Millwood in 1S39. Their children are : 

(62) Lois Burtnett, 1840; m. Mahlon Mc- 

Artor ; she d. 1868. 

(63) Mary Burtnett, 1842 ; m. Armedian 

White ; he d. 1905. 

(64) Martin Ellis Burtnett, 1845; m. Angie 

L. Adrian. 

(65) Martha Burtnett, 1845; m. William 

Jacobs ; he d. 1902. 

(66) Eliza Burtnett, 1847; m. Steve Tish ; 

she d. 1879. 

(67) Melissa Burtnett, 1850; m. Allen Os- 

BORN ; he d. 1893. 



7o John Burtnett Family. 

(68) Benjamin Burtnett, 1852; d. 1864. 

(69) Emma A. Burtnett, 1855. 

(70) William Burtnett, i860; m. Margaret 

McMains; he d. 1890. 
(Martin and Martha are twins) . 

John Burtnett Jr., was a young man of nine- 
teen when his father bought the Ellis farm in 1835. 
He was second in a large family, and a hard-working, 
honest man, with a desire and purpose from the first, 
as he said, " to own that land himself some day." 
And though he lived elsewhere at times after his 
marriage, yet he kept close by or upon it for the most 
part ; and after his father's death he gradually paid 
off the other heirs, until we believe he finally acquired 
full ownership. He was often engaged in other en- 
terprises than farming ; we have noted his running a 
threshing-machine. But his chief avocation was 
dealing in live stock, successfully and otherwise. In 
the '6o's he made two or more trips to Iowa with 
car-loads of horses and sheep, and on his returning 
from a later expedition of this kind, if we remember 
rightly, during the '70's, he met his death, probably 
by foul play, somewhere in Indiana. 

Since that time the farm has become the home of 
the only surviving son, Martin E. Burtnett ; so that 
at this time the third generation of Burtnetts dwell 
there. Since it is so well established as " the Burt- 
nett farm," it is to be hoped that succeeding genera- 
tions of the name may yet continue upon it. 

Lois Burtnett McArtor left three daughters; 
Mary and Rose, who married two brothers named 
Norton, in Iowa county Iowa ; and Eva, who mar- 



John Burtnett Family. 7^ 

ried Mr. Butts in Ohio, and lives near Danville. 
The latter has three or more children. 

Mary Burtnett White lives in Delaware county 
Ohio, near Westerville and Lewis Centre; on the 
farm where Mr, White died. There are two chil- 
dren : I. Charles A. White, Delaware, Ohio, 
dealer in carriages and farm implements ; has wife 
and three children. The eldest of these, Orpha May, 
was m. 1909, to Paul M. Gault. 2. Anna White 
(Bale), Wester\-ille, Ohio, near her mother; hus- 
band and two children. 

Martin' E. Burtnett and wife have brought up 
two children; Fred A. Burtnett, b. 1884, and 
Florence Della May Burtnett, b. 1S87. Fred 
was married in 1907, to May B. Allen of Howard, 
and they have one daughter, Lois Burtnett, b. 1908 ; 
and live on a farm near the town. Delia May was 
married in 1908 to William J. McNabb of Butler 
township, where their home now is. 

Martha Burtnett Jacobs, and husband Wil- 
liam, lived nearly all their married life in Gambler, 
the college town of Knox county. About 1902 
they removed to a farm some miles to the north- 
ward, near Danville, where the husband and father 
died not long after. There were six children in all : 
Mary E. Jacobs, b. 1867 ; Cora A. Jacobs, 187 i ; 
Edward H. Jacobs, 1874; Emma F. Jacobs, 1877 ; 
John J. Jacobs, 1880; and Ruth B. Jacobs, 1885. 
Cora A. was married in 1908, to Mr. Blue of the 
same neighborhood, and died of pneumonia the same 
year. She and her elder sister Mary had for some 
years carried on a business in skilled embroidery de- 



72 Alva P. Ellis family, 

signs, their trade extending throughout the country ; 
and were for a considerable time located in Colum- 
bus, O. The two sons have proven themselves suc- 
cessful and prosperous farmers. 

Mr. Jacobs, the father, was a direct descendant of 
Myles Standish and John Alden of the Plymouth 
Pilgrims, his family being the ninth generation. 

Eliza Burtnett Tish was married and lived in 
Knox county. Left one son, Burleigh Tish, who 
died young. 

Melissa Burtnett Osborn lives on her farm 
near Marengo, Morrow county. Has one daughter, 
Lois Osborn, m. 190S, to H. R. Smith Jr., of 
Delaware ; now resident at Houghton, N. Y. 

Emma A. Burtnett, unmarried, lives with her 
sister, Mrs. White, near Westerville. 

William Burtnett lived in Knox county, then 
in Iowa, and again in Ohio, where he died. Left 
one daughter, Charilla, who died young. 



The Alva P. Ellis Family. 



(45) Alva P. Ellis ") married in Knox 

(71) Margaret Sanders J Co., O., 1844. 

Children : 

(72) Francis O. Ellis, b. Howard, O., 1S45. JO . f *f 

(73) Sarah C. Ellis, b. " " 1S46. 

(74) Laura E. Ellis, b. " » 1848. 

(75) Clara B. Ellis, b. " " 1853. 

(76) Norton S. Ellis, b. Wellman, Iowa, 1855. 

(77) Emma L. Ellis, b. Green Center, Iowa, 

1856. 



on Millwood Farm. 73 

In nearly everything that has been written concern- 
ing the Millwood farm, Alva Ellis is to be counted 
present as boy or man. He was about fifteen when 
the family came from the "Burtnett farm," thence- 
forth so called ; and he bore a sturdy part with his 
father in all the great labor of clearing, fencing and 
tilling that new possession. He was tireless, ambi- 
tious and energetic ; never shirking ; and fully 
equalled his father in the prodigies of work he 
accomplished. When he married and built a house 
a few rods from his parents, it was to be as a tenant, 
and no suggestion of allotment of land to be called his, 
seems to have been made. And mostly for nearly 
ten years, except while absent in California, he 
worked as before on his father's land. 

He was by nature sufficiently mechanical to be 
skilful in all ordinary farm or house-building and 
repairing ; a faculty which always was useful in the 
making of farm implements. We have heard of his 
once going with his parents to Mt. Vernon, when he 
was perhaps twelve years old ; and when they were 
about to return, they found him greatly absorbed in 
examination of a wheelbarrow. He had evidently 
never before seen one, but this inspection bore fruit 
not many days after ; when out of the meagre facilities 
on the farm, he constructed a really creditable wheel- 
barrow ; and came to the house in great feather, 
wheeling to his mother a load of bark for firewood ! 
None but those who have achieved victory by their 
own effort, or parents who have rejoiced with them, 
can well appreciate such a homely episode. 

There were severe trials for the farmers in the 
early years of the Alva Ellis family. Wheat was 



74 A. P. Ellis Family^ 

about the most readily salable crop, and wheat seemed 
to have a host of enemies in those years. Hessian 
fly, rust and weevil successively devastated the 
promising crop ; and doubtless had an influence on 
the young farmer ; first, to seek his fortune in Cali- 
fornia, and later to turn his face toward the prairies 
of Iowa. 

However that may have been, we find that the next 
year after his return from California, he joined with 
several others, who like himself had no land, and 
went prospecting to Iowa. They all "entered" or 
purchased "government land," never before occupied 
by white men, at $1.25 per acre. This was in Iowa 
county, some twenty odd miles from Iowa City, then 
the capital of the State, and which was a State then 
but seven years old. Most of this same land is now 
worth about one hundred twenty-five dollars per acre, 
a little more than a half century later ! 

The next year, on October 12, 1854, witnessed the 
migration of the Alva P. Ellis family to their land of 
promise. It was one of the great years of exodus 
from eastern and central states to what was then 
"way out west." Many went by rail as far as rail- 
ways extended ; perhaps one line had at that time 
reached the Mississippi, but we think not. The river 
was not bridged till some years afterward, and there 
was not a rail laid in Iowa until about 1855-6. 

But the great throng of emigrants for Illinois, Iowa, 
Wisconsin, Minnesota, and some yet further, was by 
means of the " covered wagon." Their appearance 
is familiar to all who possess a school history or 
geography ; but the experience of such a journey is 
in itself an epoch in life, especially to the young 
generation. 



Removal to Iowa. 75 

The ordinary outfit was a pair of horses or oxen 
attached to the canvas-covered wagon. Some may 
have had two wagons ; in other cases two families 
went in one wagon. Many had small means and 
large families, and to procure even a modest outfit 
was difficult. Doubtless some had to stop short of 
their intended destination, by reason of bad roads 
or exhausted animals; but generally they "went 
through," anywhere from four hundred to a thousand 
miles, in from three to eight weeks. 

The outfit of Alva P. Ellis was decidedly larger 
and better than the average. While many went upon 
the plan of converting pretty much all their posses- 
sions into cash, and carrying a light load, he did just 
the opposite. Believing it would be better to take 
with him everything possible which w^ould be needed, 
he procured from one source the running gear of a 
wide track, extra heavy mountain wagon, once prob- 
ably used on the National Road, with tires nearly an 
inch thick. Then from his brother-in-law John 
Burtnett if we mistake not, he bought a large Pennsyl- 
vania wagon-body, just fitted to the running gear; 
and he then had a complete wagon, such as were 
formerly used to transport six-horse loads over the 
Alleghanies before the day of railroads. 

The stowage capacity of this big wagon was great, 
nearly three times that of the ordinary emigrant out- 
fit. This was packed with the skill of an experienced 
" forty-niner," all heavy articles at the bottom, and 
filled almost solidly to the arched canvas roof. A 
space was reserved in the forward end for the family ; 
snug and comfortable in all weathers, but with an 
outlook ahead only. This family space was at night 



^6 Ejiiigration Experiences. 

made into a sort of Pullman compartment, wherein 
slept the Boy, — no longer so small as he had been — 
and a young man named Jasper Horner, who was 
" working his passage " to Iowa. This was great 
enjoyment for a boy ; but others of the family were 
housed at night under a large tent, which was equally 
as great fun for such as liked it. The end of the first 
day's travel was a few miles west of Mt. Vernon in 
the beech woods, with the fallen leaves several inches 
deep ; beneath which were quarts and pecks of beech 
nuts. And wasn't that a royal camping place ? 

The motive power of the big wagon was two yoke 
of heavy oxen, led by a large horse ; all full-shod. 
Shoeing oxen was by no means common, but it saved 
the risk of lameness, and no delay occured on the 
way ; the team working perfectly. Three cows, and 
a saddle-horse for following them, completed the list 
of live stock. The Boy generally rode the saddle- 
horse, and milked the cows ; these latter in Ohio 
before starting, in Indiana and Illinois on the way, 
and in Iowa after they arrived ; milked the same 
cows in four States. But he will never do the like 
again. 

The weather was generally favorable, and for the 
greater part high spirits prevailed. If some things 
became monotonous, new things came to enliven 
the travellers. 

There are distinct recollections of crossing the 
Olentangy at Delaware, where the Boy for the first 
time saw a " cuUud pusson ;" of Urbana and Piqua ; 
of the corduroy and plank roads through what was 
then called the Black Swamp in Indiana, and the 
numerous toll-gates ; for in those days many thor- 



Indiana and Illinois. 77 

oughfares were chartered private enterprises, and 
exacted tribute from all who passed over them. 
Attica is also remembered, because of its water sys- 
tem ; probably log pipes in the ground with drinking 
places along the streets, called " fountain pumps" — 
a great curiosity to the Boy. And the Wabash, if 
we mistake not, was the river crossed by a " rope 
ferry," another curiosity. A strong cable was 
stretched across, between big trees ; and the flat boat 
was attached by a V rope, with a pulley running on 
the cable. By varying either length of the V rope, 
the angle of the boat to the current would be changed, 
and it would run across, and back again, as desired. 

Then they came to Danville, to Bloomington, and 
to Peoria, thrifty towns even then. There was a 
railroad at Peoria coming down from Chicago and 
going on south, to Springfield, probably. The Boy 
remembered the place particularly because of the size 
and number of buffalo fish he saw there, caught in 
the lake ; and they were an entirely new variety to 
that young angler. 

A singular and unpleasant experience attended the 
mother and children in crossing that part of Illinois 
called the Grand Prairie. A sort of ophthalmia attacked 
them all, caused probably by some local microbe or 
vegetable dust peculiar to that region. For several 
days, the eyelids would be so stuck together in the 
mornincT that it was no small task to " wash and come 



^fc) 



seeing. 



About Nov. 8th the emigrants reached the Father 
of Waters opposite Muscatine. Did the great river 
ever look so big to any other Boy ? Full to the bank's 
limit, it rolled down from the vasty North ; cold, blue, 



ijS Early Settlement. 

immeasurable, irresistible, eternal ; they said it was 
a mile wide, and from twenty to forty feet deep ! 
It does not seem so now, from any of the great steel 
bridges; but from the low, flat horse-ferry boat 
it was then awe-inspiring. 

And here was Iowa ; then a State of eight years ; 
a year or two older than Ohio, when the first Benja- 
min Ellis family came down the river to Newport. 
It had about a quarter million white inhabitants ; one 
tenth the number of fifty years later. There was not 
a mile of railroad or telegraph; transportation was 
wholly by wagons to and from the river towns, and 
the interior settlements. All merchandise was by 
river steamboats, then in their glory, but now almost 
obsolete. Business was good, for the great tide of 
immigration brought money and needs, and those 
who had aught to sell found a good market with the 
new comers. Little or nothing was sold for export 

in those days. 

A singular feature of the earlier settlement of the 
state was in the fact that the larger number of the 
pioneers located in the woods or "timber" along the 
streams, where nearly all the existing trees were 
found. They built cabins and farmed generally in a 
small way, after the manner of the wooded states ; 
and did not venture out upon the prairies where the 
soil was far better. Many actually cleared land of 
trees for farming, as their fathers had done in Ohio 
and Indiana ! 

But the great immigration of the '50's was of those 
awake to the value of prairie land for farming. All 
they wanted of the land along the streams was for 
wood-lots, from which to cut firewood and building 



'"'■ Breaking Up" the Land. 79 

and fencing material. They fearlessly faced the 
bleak winds of winter in the open, for the greater 
freedom and better soil, rather than to shelter them- 
selves behind the bluffs and trees as did the earlier 
comers. 

Two or three days travel brought the Alva Ellis 
family from Muscatine to the county next that where- 
in lay their own land. Friends who had preceded 
them by a year welcomed them ; and in a few days 
an empty cabin was found on the bank of Smith 
Creek, perhaps a half mile from the present thriving 
town of Wellman. A year was spent in this neigh- 
borhood ; a crop raised on rented land, and prepar- 
ations made to occupy their new farm at the end of 
1855. 

This temporary home was seven or eight miles 
from their own tract, and no attempt was made to do 
anything there until the next summer. The father 
traded his two horses for more oxen, and organized a 
four yoke "breaking team," for turning over the 
tough prairie sod. The Boy became driver, and soon 
learned to snap the big whip over the long line of 
oxen as they drew the breaking-plow, which turned 
abovit a twenty -four inch furrow. Land was then 
broken up, if we rightly remember, for a dollar and 
a quarter per acre ; just what the owners paid Uncle 
Sam for it. Considerable money was earned in this 
way for about three years. 

In August, 1855, the first break was made to open 
up land for their own home. A considerable area 
was turned over for a wheat crop to be sown the 
following spring ; and the same was done for a neigh- 
bor whose land adjoined, who built a small house 



8o First Divellings^ 

immediately afterward. Up to that time there was 
but one roof to be seen anywhere about there. North, 
south, east, west ; all was unfenced native pasture, 
green and waving prairie grass, over which roamed 
wild deer and coyotes, and from which the Indian 
and buffalo had but lately disappeared. But what a 
great, out-door, roomy place it was, " with no one 
nigh to hinder"! Here was life, liberty, and hap- 
piness indeed ; and the more than half century since 
has not effaced nor dulled the memory of that boy- 
hood experience. 

After a few days of camp life on the new home- 
stead, and sleeping at night in the big wagon, the 
two departed, and early in December the family all 
came, and housed with neighbor Lybarger, who had 
just built and moved in, after the Ellises had done 
their plowing. In the two families thus brought to- 
gether, there were the fovir adults and eight children, 
aged from one to ten years. The house was one 
room, not more than eighteen feet square, with a loft 
overhead, where beds were made for the rising gen- 
eration, and to which dormitory they ascended by a 
rude ladder. Pretty snug packing it was, up stairs 
and down ; too close together to be cold, and too 
much fun always to think of quarreling. 

A lean-to addition was soon built, making the 
accommodations more ample, and here they all dwelt, 
healthy and comfortable until the following spring. 
During the winter, the two men, who had been school 
boys together in Ohio, assembled and prepared the 
materials for the Ellis house. As built, it contained 
seven rooms, and was more commodious than most 
others erected at that time. Many dwellings of the 



and Early Farming. 8i 

period were called " plank houses," being enclosed 
with upright planks with the joints battened, making 
a fairly tight "shell;" and in such an enclosure 
families often lived for years, until able to get the 
interior ceiled or plastered. The Ellis house was a 
regular " balloon frame," covered with weatherboards 
of black walnut, and floored and shingled with white 
oak, all from the " timber " along English River, 
where a ten-acre lot belonged to the farm. In early 
spring, stone was hauled five or six miles for a 
foundation ; and in a few weeks the house was 
" enclosed " and occupied, May, 1856. 

Plastering materials were not to be had that year, 
and only with difficulty in 1857. A trip to Musca- 
tine was made to get sashes, glass and hardware, 
' together with some additional supplies for the new 
farm. Soon after, during 1857, a railroad was com- 
pleted to Iowa City, about twenty-two miles distant, 
so that from that time there was a selling and pur- 
chasing market one day's journey away. But to 
return ; now for the farming. 

First, the spring wheat must be sown, even in the 
midst of the house-building. Scattered upon the 
half -rotted sod of the previous year, it was harrowed 
in as thorovighly as possible, and with favorable 
weather a good crop of " Canada Club " was har- 
vested in about four months. Then more of the vir- 
gin turf was turned over by the big " breaking team," 
and " sod-corn " was planted, for there was yet no 
ground tillable for corn. Sod-corn was planted by 
cutting a gash in the raw sod with an axe, dropping 
in a few grains and then closing the cut with the 
foot. No cultivation was possible, so the corn grew 



82 Garden^ Hay and Fences. 

as best it could, and in favorable seasons a consider- 
able crop was often grown, the best of which would 
make meal for the family, and the other, with the 
stalks, was good feed for stock. 

Some of the land broken up the first summer was 
a " hazel-rough," covered thick with hazel bushes; 
and no sod in it. This made a wonderful soil for 
garden use, where everything grew abundantly, iDar- 
ticularly potatoes and melons. Two seasons on that 
spot produced watermelons of fabulous size, and of 
a quality we have never since seen equalled anywhere. 
Later, however, the quality and size both declined to 
the normal. 

Since cattle could run at large for pasture, it was 
necessary to fence all cultivated land, and the build- 
ing of fences was a large item of labor and expense. 
These were mostly of mortised posts carrying three 
rails, or posts with the rails spiked on ; this being suf- 
ficient to turn all well-bred cattle and horses ; while 
swine were kept shut up. 

The hay needed for stock was for some years 
wholly from the wild grass of the prairie. At its 
best, it was equal to any of the domestic varieties, for 
milch cows, horses and working cattle. But when 
in time it became scarcer from fencing up more of 
the.land, it was necessary to seed down part of each 
farm for pasture and hay. But to this day there are 
those who prefer prairie hay, even at a higher price, 
and though brought perhaps a thousand miles. 

The advantages of the new location and method of 
farming were marked and encouraging. The land 
was already cleared ; not a bush, stump or stone 
interfered with cultivation; and it was "great larks" 



Crops and Wood- hauling. 83 

for a man who had been always before limited by 
such obstacles, now to plow a clean, straight furrow, 
in the deep, black soil, for a quarter or half mile ; all 
on his own land ! 

The second year, that is, after the first wheat crop, 
saw the land ready to plow deeper, for the first actual 
corn crop. This was usually a fair yield, but generally 
not equally good with Avhat followed a year or two 
later, when the prairie grass roots had thoroughly 
rotted. Oats, rye and buckwheat grew readily, also 
all the vegetable crops, so that by the third year of 
such a farm as indicated, everything was in "full 
swing." Corn-stalk pasture was from the first a 
favorite way of fall and winter feeding of cattle. 
But little corn was cut into shocks for some years ; 
the small grain and the larger job of field husking 
seeming to overshadow the minor one of "cutting up" 
corn. But all live stock, including even the hogs, 
could in winter forage with the prairie hens in the 
fields; which then as now, gave them a good living 
for many weeks. 

The providing of wood for present and next sum- 
mer's use, and the getting out of sawed lumber and 
split posts and rails for more fences, made a chief 
feature of the winter's work. The daily trip with 
oxen or horses to " the timber " whenever weather 
allowed, was as regular as the plowing or mowing of 
summer ; and was often a test of physical endurance 
not so common at the present day. Many men and 
boys at that time had neither overcoat nor under-suits ; 
and to face a northwester at zero for a homeward 
drive of one, two, or three miles, often necessitated 
running and stamping and thrashing of arms to keep 



84 Schools and Churches. 

from perishing ; and the Boy had such a fight often- 
times. Winters seemed much more severe then than 
now in Iowa ; and the farms and roads had then no 
groves and wind-breaks which are so common today. 
The neighborhood of the Alva P. EUis farm at 
Green Center was rapidly settled, so that in two or 
three years nearly half the land was fenced and being 
broken up. Abundant territory yet remained for 
pasturage, belonging to speculative non-residents ; 
which was afterward gradually acquired by settlers. 
Schools were lacking at first, but ere long there were 
facilities provided to teach the young idea how to 
shoot. In the earlier days, perhaps on becoming a 
state. Congress had granted to Iowa one square mile 
of unsold land in each township, the proceeds of 
which when sold, were to constitute a fund for the 
promotion of common school education. Any school 
district which could muster a certain number of 
pupils or children of school age, could borrow from 
this fund for the building of a school house ; and thus 
what would have been at first impossible by direct 
taxation, was made accessible to hundreds and per- 
haps thousands of districts. 

As to church accommodation, this was at first 
in the dwellings of the settlers, but promptly on the 
appearing of school houses, they became the places 
of meeting. Denominational preferences soon led to 
the country church house ; and while some died, as it 
were, yet in most cases they have lived and served 
their generation well. But in these later years, with 
the improvements of roads and vehicles, the tendency 
is to centralize both schools and churches in the rail- 
road towns, thus leaving not a few of the former 
places to fall into decay. 



Primitive Stabling. 85 

The early farm buildings in Iowa were very differ- 
ent from those in the wooded States. Nearly all the 
stock was sheltered under hay or straw sheds, formed 
of a frame of poles covered with brush, upon which 
was piled or stacked a great heap of wild grass from 
the sloughs or hollows of the prairie. This grass 
was often fully six feet high, and when well built 
upon a brush roof, would shed the rain well for 
some years. The south side of these shelters would 
be left open, and the other three sides walled up to 
the eaves with sods, or banked with a great quantity 
of straw ; so that when well done either way the 
shelter was even warmer than the ordinary log or 
board stables of the older States. Often a large part 
or the whole of the farm threshing would be done 
here, and an immense heap of straw piled on and 
around the sheds, so they would be buried many feet 
deep. Cattle and horses would then feed on straw 
and chaff all winter, and often needed little else. 
When the next threshing season arrived, the old straw 
would have almost disappeared, and the process 
would be repeated. 

But threshing soon came to be done mostly in the 
midst of the fields, where the straw was stacked in 
some order, and then all winter through the cattle 
had free access to it. And even at this day it looks 
comfortable and home-like to see a " bunch" of 
calves, cows and steers eating their way into a big 
straw-stack ! 

In addition to opening up the new farm, Alva P. 
Ellis and Boy continued for two years to run the four- 
yoke breaking-plow for other settlers, and earned 
considerable hard money by doing so. We remember 



86 Sorghum Cultivation. 

that gold and silver seemed quite plentiful then ; no 
silver dollars ; gold ones nearly alw^ays. Nobody 
wanted the paper money of that day, from the state 
and private banks, and both of uncertain value. On 
the way thither from Ohio, it was hardly possible to 
pass the paper money of any state at face value out- 
side of its own boundaries ; and not a few sharpers 
did a good business " shaving" the bank bills of the 
time. Compare that state of things in currency, with 
the system in use ten years later, as developed by 
Salmon P. Chase ! 

The introduction of the sorghum sugar-cane began 
here in 1857, and immediately on every farm was 
found a space devoted to its culture. Two or more 
neighbors usually joined in making a crusher of up- 
right wooden rolls, turned by a horse hitched to a 
sweep, after the manner of a brick-clay mixer; and 
by this was the juice pressed out. Evaporating pans 
after the pattern of the Benjamin Ellis maple sugar 
plant, made the production of syrup easy ; and 
nobody henceforth lacked sweetening, such as it was. 
Sugar was not produced to any extent, but the best 
made of the syrup was quite palatable, and filled an 
important place in every household for some years. 

The spring and early summer of 1858 were phe- 
nomenally wet, so that the corn crop was very meagre, 
and small headway was made that year. Sound corn 
was so scarce that it was difficult to get enough for 
seed the following spring. There was then no tile- 
draining, except in the " Prairie Farmer," where we 
remember it was advocated at the time ; nor was there 
any education in selection and improvement of corn, 
as now. A curious result of that wet season was the 



A. P. Ellis; Early Death. 87 

coming up of cotton-wood seedlings on all cultivated 
land, and where not pulled up they soon became 
thrifty trees. Many large trees about the homesteads 
of today date from that year. 

The season of 1859 was propitious, and an abund- 
ance resulted, particularly of corn. The price had 
been naturally high for awhile — perhaps twenty-five 
cents — and much was expected by everybody. But 
the price went down, and stayed there ; the following 
spring the Boy hauled corn away to Iowa City and 
to Washington, and received in either place twelve 
cents a bushel. At the present time sixty to seventy 
cents is paid, with one-fourth the distance to haul. 
Pork was correspondingly low ; our recollection being 
that dressed hogs were not worth over two dollars 
per hundred pounds ; one of our surviving friends of 
that time says " a dollar and a half." Cotton was 
king then ; corn had not yet come to the throne ! 

But this was the last of Alva Ellis's farming. In 
the early autumn, after the hard summer's work, he 
learned of the death of his brother Silas in Boone, 
Iowa. They had always been much attached, having 
been particular workers together; and the news 
seemed to depress him. In a few days he became ill ; 
and a week later, Oct. 19, 1S59, he died of blood- 
poisoning ; exactly nine years after the death of his 
brother Henry in California, and himself in his thirty- 
ninth year. 

Thus went early and unexpectedly to his rest, an 
honest, hardy. God-fearing man ; lamented not only 
by his family, but by all the community of which he 
was a part. Fifty years have since gone ; and still, as 



88 Civil War. 

this little story of his life is told, there comes upon 
the heart anew the sense of loss of a father and a 
good man. 

Such a loss must of necessity change almost entirely 
the fortunes and prospects of the family ; neverthe- 
less a brave struggle was made to carry on the work 
of the farm, and with partial success. All that could 
be done by mother and children enabled them to 
"keep even;" no gain was perceptible. In the next 
October, the younger son, Norton, in his sixth year, 
died of diphtheria, — the first case of that scourge in 
all the country around, and altogether new to the 
doctors. 

The following year, 1861, brought the national 
convulsion of civil war. The yet new state of Iowa 
rushed into the conflict, by companies, regiments and 
brigades ; until the working force of the farms and 
other occupations was very seriously depleted. The 
necessities of warfare stimulated production, and an 
inflated currency soon advanced prices and made 
trade active. State and municipal debts were incurred 
to pay bounties for enlistments, and later for the 
care of needy families, and taxes naturally increased. 
But the state continued to develop, and so general 
had been the increase of population that each year 
showed not only an increase of grain and cattle and 
hogs, but also a new crop of young men for the army. 
And it is worthy of note in this connection, that after 
the war Iowa was the first of all the States to get out 
of debt ; which was fully paid, if we are not mis- 
taken, in the early seventies. 

In the midst of the time of war, a third visitation 
of death came to the Ellis home. This time, Laura, 



F. O. Ellis Family. 89 

in her fifteenth year, was taken, after a brief illness, 
on March 8th, 1863. She had superior faculties, 
and was a favorite among all the young people, by 
whom she was greatly lamented. 

Leaving behind them their row of graves, the de- 
pleted family soon after removed to Iowa City, 
mainly for educational advantages. Ten years later 
the mother and daughters removed to Keota, a new 
railroad town in Keokuk county ; and in the home 
there established, the mother, Mrs. Margaret Ellis, 
and eldest daughter, Sarah C. Ellis, yet remain. 

Frank O. Ellis (72), only remaining son of 
the A. P. Ellis family, was in the Iowa State Uni- 
versity about three years, and went to Boston at the 
end of 1 868, and became accountant for his mother's 
brothers, in wholesale shoe trade. In 1877 he started 
business on his own account in Lynn, Mass., supply- 
ing shoe manufacturers with certain lines of goods, 
in New England and other States; continuing for 
about thirty years. The only public office he ever 
held was that of chairman or secretary of the School 
Board of Swampscott for seven years. Published 
from 18S3 to 1891 a monthly, "The New England 
Evangelist ;" the result of which experience was to 
make him entirely undenominational in church atti- 
tude. Attention now given largely to Bible study 
and teaching. Married in 1873, Celeste I. Porter 
of Swampscott, where their home has ever since been. 
Their children are : 

(i) Emily Pearl Ellis, 1875; silverware sales- 
woman in Salem, Mass. ; lives with her 
parents. >0 . / *f (» f __^ 





90 Dr. F. B. Home Fainily, 

(2) Stuart Porter Ellis, 1878; commercial 

photographer, Swampscott ; lives with 
parents. 

(3) Carl Palmer Ellis, 1879; representative 

of Pittsburgh Plate Glass Co., Boston; m. 
to Elizabeth North of Lynn, 1906 ; lives 
in Dorchester district, Boston. 

(4) How^ARD Garfield Ellis, 1881 ; draughts- 

man for shoe machinery in Lynn ; m. to 
Edith Foster of Boston, 1909 ; lives in 
Saugus, Mass. 

Clara B. Ellis (75), was a student in the Iowa 
State University ; then a teacher; and in 1875 was 
married to Dr. F. B. Home, of Keota, Iowa. In 
1888 they removed to Beloit, Kan. ; where they now 
reside. Four children were born : 

(i) Alva Earl Home, 1878; Beloit; surveyor 
for Mitchell county ; lives with parents. 

(2) Zela Belle Home, iSSfc); teacher; m. 1909 

to George W. McClung, and lives in 
Jewell, Kansas. 

(3) Mary Ellis Home, 1887; accountant; lived 

with parents ; d. 1907. 

(4) Frank B. Home, 1890; teacher; with her 

parents in Beloit. 
Emma Lois Ellis (77) was m. in Keota, Iowa, 
1875, to Arthur E. Stewart; farmer and stock- 
man, and they have ever since lived in that place. 
Their children are : 

(i) Myrtle May Stewart, 1876; m. William 
Charles Farmer, in 1902; and their 
children are : Francis, 1903 ; Mary Lois, 



A. E. Stewart Fajnily. 91 

1905; Margaret Isabel, 1907; Florence 
Irene, 1908. Mr. Farmer is superintend- 
ent of the Government Indian School at 
Wetumka, Okla., where they now reside. 

(2) Warren Francis Stewart, 1S78; farmer 

and stockman, with his father ; Keota, 
Iowa. 

(3) Stanley .Sebern Stewart, 1883; m. in 

1907 to Sarah McNurlen of Keota. Is 
a farmer and stockman with his father in 
same place. 

(4) Emma Lois .Stewart, 1885 ; musician and 

teacher ; with parents in Keota. 

(5) Clara Belle Stewart, 1888; musician and 

teacher ; with parents in Keota. 



The Silas Ellis Family. 



(46) Silas Ellis ) m. in Zanesville, O., 

Sophia Stenger j 1847- 

Children : 

(93) Emma Ellis, 1850; Adamsville O. 

(93) Norton A. Ellis, 1854; Adamsville, O. 

Silas Ellis was the particular chum of his elder 
brother Alva, whom he much resembled. Their 
real boyhood together was on the " Burtnett farm ;" 
for after the removal to the Millwood farm they soon 
grew into the stature and work of men, where the 
work of men was much needed. The younger boys 
attended school after the removal ; but we have an 
impression that these two had practically no further 
schooling, as the necessities of labor were so great. 
And as for Silas, it is remembered that school life 



92 Silas Ellis ^ in Ohio 

was not particularly interesting to him, so far as re- 
lated to " book larnin';" hence he was perhaps not 
conscious of any great loss. A memory of his school 
life is told, illustrative of this. The teacher of the 
time had a strict rule forbidding whispering between 
scholars, so that there should be no surreptitious 
telling one another about lessons. But Silas was 
" caught in the act " of whispering to another boy, 
and was forthwith called to account with the 
question, "Now, what was you asking him about ?" 
With bashful reluctance, Silas finally confessed, " I 
was jest tellin' him, 'How many dogs did he have ?' " 
It is believed that the unexpectedness of the answer 
excused him; with the admonition perhaps, "Not 
guilty, but don't do so any more !" 

As before recorded, Silas had a much greater liking 
for tools and mechanics than for farm work. 
Promptly at twenty-one, as it would appear, he went 
to learn the trade of gun-smithing with Sam Stull in 
Millwood. How long he remained in this shop we 
do not learn ; but it is said " he did not stay his time 
out " for some reason ; probably being in a hurry to 
set to work for himself. So far as we remember to 
have heard, he then went to Zanesville, as may be 
supposed, to be among the Ballou cousins. He 
evidently visited his uncle Silas at Grand View, and 
his aunt Diana at Matamoras, as well as his sister 
Melissa Edgell at Newport, but at what date is 
unknown. As a memento of that visit we have in 
his own writing, given to his brother Alva in 1853, 
the instructions for building a cistern ; which he is 
understood to have received from his uncle Silas at 
some time previous. 



and in loiva. 



93 



He married at Zanesville, if we are rightly 
informed, and afterward located in Adamsville, a 
small town a few miles distant, from which time if 
not before, he had a shop of his own, and where he 
thrived to some extent at least. But the town was 
not destined to grow, and property values ultimately 
declined to a fraction of their anticipated value. 

When his brother Henry came of age in 1849, he 
joined Silas in Adamsville, to learn the trade. There 
must have been good prospects in the business at that 
time, or he would not have done this. But Henry 
did not remain long, being persuaded by Alva to join 
him in his California expedition, in the spring of 
1850. So Silas continued the work alone, with 
reasonable content as we believe, until perhaps 1855, 
when his brother Alva's letters from Iowa seem to 
have filled his mind with hope of better things there, 
and to which state he removed about 1856. He 
settled in Boone, then called Boonesboro ; on the 
Des Moines River, some forty miles from the present 
state capital. At that time the town must have been 
small, but work was plenty, and his letters showed 
great cheerfulness and expectation for the future. 

But his time in Iowa was destined to be shorter 
even than his brother Alva's. He seemed to have 
good health for two years, but in 1859 he was made 
supervisor of highways for the town, and overworked 
himself in his conscientious example of public duty, 
so that he was prostrated by sunstroke. He rallied 
partially, but finally succumbed, dying on September 2 
of that year, being a little less than thirty -seven at 
the time. 

Thus preceding Alva by a few weeks, the two who 



94 Silas Ellis Fantily. 

had been close to each other in sympathy all their 
lives, were not divided in death. And as we have 
written of the one, so of the other ; he was a good 
man and father, worthy of the name. His widow 
lived nearly forty years in the same home, having 
several relatives in the neighborhood, and she 
died 1899. 

Emma Ellis (92), daughter of Silas and Sophia, 
was married in 1868 to Winfield S. DeWolf, 
(b.1845, d.1891) ; and they lived in Iowa and Indiana. 

Children: (1) Harry Ellis DeWolf, 1870; 
married, lives in Indianapolis, and is mail carrier for 
the State Capitol; (2) Opal DeWolf, 1874; m. 
John H. Weir in 1894; they reside in Los Angeles 
Cal., and have one daughter, Helen Vivian Weir, 
1898. The widow, Emma EUis DeWolf, lives with 
them. , . , ,./ ; / ^ / , 

Norton A. Ellis (93), coming to Boone when 
he was perhaps two years of age, may be said to be 
almost a native of that place. He became a tinsmith 
and plumber, and engaged in merchandising, and has 
been for many years a prominent and useful citizen. 
Like his father, he has shown a tendency to mechanics 
and invention ; and despite a less rugged health than 
that of some others, he nevertheless continues actively 
in business and public interest. And like one of 
Mark Twain's characters, it is to be recorded of him 
that " he never shook his mother." Her home and 
her interests were his until the last; and she lies 
buried as " Sophia, the mother of Emma and Norton 
Ellis." One regret may be permitted, that he has 
never been married, yet. 



Albert Ellis Family. 95 

The Albert Ellis Family. 



(47) Albert Ellis ) m. in Mt. Vernon, O., 

Sarah H. Encell j 1S48. 

Children : 

(95) Gilbert James Ellis, 1849; Howard, O. 

(96) Lois Helen Ellis, 185 1 ; " " 

(97) John Encell Ellis, 1852; " " 

(98) ElmaE. R. Ellis, 1868; « " 

Like his eldest brother Alva, Albert Ellis remained 
on or near the father's Millwood farm. For perhaps 
two seasons the brothers rented land a mile westward, 
there being not yet enough cleared for them all ; after 
which Alva returned to his own house as at first, and 
Albert settled in the Henry Babcock house, then va- 
cant. Here they continued as partners on the 
father's land, until the removal of the Alva Ellis 
family to Iowa. Albert's wife Sarah taught the 
summer school of the district in 1850 ; and one of the 
Small Boy's keepsakes of those early days is a 
" Reward of Merit " to him from her, bearing their 
initials. Later in life she became a successful physi- 
cian, and with the two daughters, settled in Knox- 
ville, Tenn., where she died in 1900, at the age of 
seventy. 

When the first call of President Lincoln was made 
for 300,000 volunteers, Albert Ellis responded, and 
joined with Alexander Cassil of the same county to 
raise a company. After preliminary disappointments, 
he set on foot a regular campaign of night meetings 
and speech-making in school-houses, and soon had a 
considerable roll of enlisted men. Albert was a 



^6 Albert Ellis Family. 

Justice of the Peace, and under orders from the 
Governor, all who signed the roll were forthwith 
sworn into the service ; and his brother Lyman joined 
him at this time. 

When the company election took place, Cassil was 
made captain and Ellis first lieutenant. The com- 
pany was not yet full, but the new lieutenant was 
detailed and commissioned by John vSherman, (after- 
ward Secretary and Senator), to complete the enlist- 
ment. 

The company was mustered in as Co. A, 65th Ohio, 
and the service of the regiment was mostly under 
General Buell in Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, 
and Mississippi. The captain being promoted, the 
command of the company devolved upon Lieutenant 
Ellis for about a year and a half, when he was broken 
down by typhoid, and eventually resigned his com- 
mission, being no longer fit for service. Afterward 
however, he regained a good degree of health, and 
has now outlived by ten years any of his brothers or 
sisters, and is the sole survivor of the ten children of 
Benjamin Ellis Jr. He was married a second time, 
about 1903 ; and has since resided principally in 
Madison, Ind. ; but more recently in Lafayette, Ind. 
Gii>BERT J. Ellis (95), was graduated from 
Bethany College, and has ever since been in the min- 
istry of the gospel. His pastorates have extended 
from New York to Iowa, and are always well 
spoken of ; as once was said of him to the writer 
by a veteran of the pulpit : "A good, able, consci- 
entious, safe man." He was a born preacher, and 
probably has never thought seriously of doing any- 
thing else. When the Small Boy was yet small, and 



Albert Ellis Family. 97 1 

Gilbert was smaller, we remember his mother or her ' 

sister telling of his being mounted on a chair or some 

other convenient rostrum, from which he was vigor- 

ously exhorting some sizable boys around him, in ' 

substance: "You, B — ; and you, L — ; and you, 1 

A — ; if you don't repent, you'll all go to h — /" The 

"visible results" or "accessions" following this i 

maiden effort are not recorded. 

In his early ministry he was located in Cato, N.Y., 
where in 1S82, he was married to Mary J. Harris. ) 

Two daughters were born : Jean Encell Ellis, J 

1883, at Portsmouth, O., and who died at Davenport, ^T?,^^^ J 
Iowa, 1886; and Esther Ellis, 1891, at Galesburg,j^ x, i 

111. The family is now resident at Carrollton, 111. j ^*^Jfi^ 

J ^^ 
John Encell Ellis (97) was a salesman, and in <. -r^, 

1882 or '83 was married in Cleveland, Ohio, to "^ 

Maude Mkhurin. He visited the writer in Mass- ■' 

achusetts in 1876, and is remembered as very good- ] 

looking, and distinctively of the Ellis type of the pre- 
ceding generation. He died in Knoxville, Tenn., in 
1890. Two children, Bruce and Bessie, died in 
infancy. Kimpton Mehurin Ellis, born in Colum- 
bus, Ohio, 1887, is said to have gone to California ' 
with his mother some years ago, and definite wherea- 1 
bouts are not known. | 

Lois Helen Ellis (96) is a successful physician j 

in Knoxville, Tenn. The date of locating there is ! 

not given. 

Elma E. R. Ellis (98) is a teacher of ancient ' 

languages in a collegiate institution in Knoxville. 



98 Andrew Ellis Family. 

The Andrew Ellis Family. 



Andrew Ellis (50) was a farmer with his father, 
and also learned carpentering. He worked for a 
time at this in Newport, living there with the 
Edgells. In this place he was first married, to Lucy 
Ferguson, about December, 1854. They at once 
went to his father's place at Millwood, and lived in 
the house just vacated by the Alva P. Ellis family. 
Two children were born, Angenora and James B., 
both of whom died young; the first before, and the 
second after the mother Lucy, who died 1858. 

In 1859 Andrew married Elizabeth Spindler 
of the Jelloway neighborhood, and we believe they 
lived nearly all the time on the Millwood farm with 
his mother Lois, until her death in 1864. Two sons 
were born to them ; (99) William Albert Ellis, 
1862; now of Marshalltown, Iowa; and (100) Nor- 
ton Spindler Ellis, 1867 ; now of Ankeny, Iowa. 
The mother, Elizabeth, died in 1870; and Andrew 
afterward married her sister, Louisa J. Spindler, 
who bore three daughters, (loi) Mary Cherrill, 
1871 ; and (102) Lucy Pearl, 1879; who are men- 
tioned later with the sons; and (103) Jennie P., 
1874; who died 1877. 

After the distribution of the Benjamin Ellis estate, 
Andrew Ellis lived in Millwood and later in Monroe 
Mills, if we remember rightly. But he had been for 
years looking toward Iowa, to which his elder 
brothers had gone many years before. Finally, in 
1883, he removed to the vicinity of Melbourne, Iowa, 
and as we remember him, was ever after an enthusi- 



Andrew Ellis I^amily. 99 

ast over prairie farming. He worked at his trade of 
carpentering perhaps more than at farming, being in 
his later years not a strong man. Afterward he built 
a house for himself in the town, and he was largely 
instrumental in the erection of a church building 
where he was a leader until his death in 1894. 

Probably few men are as well beloved of kindred 
and acquaintance as was Andrew Ellis. His enemies, 
if there were any, were few ; but his friends were 
legion. His nature was gentle and sympathetic, and 
his heart on the right side in everything. Honorable 
and industrious, his influence was always unto right- 
eousness about him, and his departure was a marked 
loss in any community where he lived. The widow, 
Louisa J. Ellis, died in 1901. 

Of the surviving children of Andrew Ellis, here 
mentioned in order, is first : 

William A. Ellis (99), who came with the family 
to Melbourne in 18S3 ; and in 1887 was married to 
Elmina L. Stouffer. Their home is near to where 
his father first settled, and it would seem hard to find 
a finer part of the country in which to live ; almost 
in the exact center of the state. Corn, cattle, hogs 
and horses, at good prices, tell the story of a pros- 
perous farm; but the best of the products are the 
following children : 

(i) Glenn Andrew Ellis, 1890; (2) Mary Es- 
TELLA, 1892; (3) Ruth Francil, 1896; (4) Har- 
old Vernon, 1898; (5) Howard Raymond, 1900; 
(6) Ronald Elmer, 1907. 

No wonder Iowa is a great and rich State ! 



lOO Andrew Ellis Fatnily, 

Norton S. Ellis (ioo) was for some years with 
his father and brother on their farm near Melbourne, 
and in 1889 was married to Emma A. Parke. They 
have lived as far west as the Pacific coast ; changing 
locations for the sake of Norton's impaired health. 
He is a carpenter, and has worked mostly at this of 
late years, as we understand ; but also has been much 
engaged in electrical construction work. The family 
now resides in Ankeny, Iowa ; some ten miles from 
Des Moines. The children born are : 

1. Lola Mae Ellis, 1S91 ; died 1896. 

2. Edna Pearl Ellis, 1893. ^ Vow i,,|<iiJtX 1(^0 < 
Mary C. Ellis (ioi) was married in Melbourne ^ 

in 1904, to David B. Troxel of that town. He is 
an all-round mechanic of Indiana birth ; and mostly 
engaged in wagon building and repairing in a thor- 
oughly-equipped shop, where he can build anything, 
from a boy's sled to a threshing machine. And in 
the house is one baby, Esther Troxell, 1908 ; and 

she is the finest baby , well, in that house ! 

Lucy P. Ellis (102) was married in 1902, to F. 
M. Taylor, and removed to Estavan, Sask. ; and one 
son, Merrill Howard Taylor, was born there, 
1905. The Taylors are developing a large farm in 
the midst of the great grain region. 



Lyman Ellis Family. 



Lyman Ellis (51) returned from army service 
in 1865, and in 1866 was married to Eliza J. Gra- 
ham, near Howard, Ohio. One daughter was born, 
Edna Ellis (104), 1870; who was married in 1895 
to Eli a. Wolf, a merchant in Howard. 



Lyman Ellis Fa7nily. loi 

If we rightly remember, Lyman Ellis was a hardy 
young man, and in the later years of his father's life 
came to be a worthy worker on the Millwood farm. 
We do not remember seeing him in school after 1S52, 
when he was about fifteen, but was among the big 
boys in plowing, haying, wood-cutting and ball play- 
ing. In a sheep-wash in Owl Creek in '53 or '54, the 
Small Boy remembers seeing him " tussling " with a 
big wether, and gradually sinking until only the top 
of his head was visible. He was nearly drowned as 
we have since been told, but we did not realize it at 
the time. 

An unusual experience happened to him when per- 
haps ten years old. He was running from the barn 
to the house after dark, to pass through a gateway 
which he supposed to be open, but a single rail or 
bar had been put up, which he struck in great force 
upon his mouth. Two upper front teeth were 
knocked out, but a little later were found by his 
mother and brother Alva, with the aid of a lantern. 
They were replaced, and though somewhat discolored, 
remained in use to the end of his life. 

After the death of his father in 1858, he continued 
at his farm work until the call to arms in 1861. He 
was now twenty-four, and when his brother Albert 
was enlisting men, he joined his company in October. 
He was made sergeant, and was a good soldier; and 
between '61 and early '64 he was in three hard- 
fought battles without a scratch. He was furloughed 
about February, '64, and came home to see his 
mother Lois, who was in failing health, and who 
died in March, while he was with her. 



I02 Lyman Ellis Family. 

Returning to the army " for three years, or until 
the end of the war," he was severely wounded at 
Franklin, Tenn., on Nov. 30, 1864. A terrible en- 
filading fire was raking his regiment, balls plowing 
the ground, spatting trees and dropping men all 
about him, when he received a ball through the thigh. 
After falling, an order was given to carry him off, 
but he refused, saying " Take care of yourselves 
boys ! I'll get away somehow." And after stuffing 
his wound with a handkerchief after the enemy 
passed over him, he crawled and dragged himself to 
the river, hoping somehow he might be able to cross 
to where he could receive attention. As though 
providentially arranged, as he said, " there stood a 
banged little mule, with a yard of rope hanging to 
his neck ;" and by aid of a log or stone he managed 
to climb on his back and forded the river. Here he 
was just in time to get on the last train for the hospi- 
tal at Nashville. 

He did not again see active service, although he 
returned to Kentucky after having been at home two 
months; when in a letter to the writer, he says, 
" The Ellis family is scattered, and Home for me is 
gone; perhaps I may never have a home again." 

After being mustered out that same year, 1865, he 
came back to Knox county, and we think was for a 
time with Andrew in business at Monroe Mills. 
Later he bought a farm there, on which he lived 
until his death, about 1890. His widow lives with 
the daughter in Howard. 



Publisher's Page. 103 

Addenda, Etc. 

Corrections and additional information are requested from 
all who can furnish the same. They will be noted, and per- 
haps printed as a supplement. 

It will be a favor to hear from all who receive this book, 
as to whether it is satisfactory, or otherwise. 

The insertion of the prospectus pages at the close of the 
volume will show to any in later years how the work was 
undertaken. 

It is hoped that the blank pages provided will be utilized 
by writing in an accurate detail and account of the family to 
which the book shall come. 

g@^ A considerable debt is incurred by the writer, above the 
liberal contributions of those named below. It is hoped that 
others receiving the volume will be moved to liquidate this, 
to the honor of the family name. 

Any descendant desiring a copy need not hesitate to send 
for it, or to order it sent to some one. If possible it will be 
done, as extra copies will be printed. Copies should be put 
in local and historical libraries, in the neighborhood of the 
families concerned. 

A large amount of incidental detail, portraits, &c., is 
omitted ; because of limited funds ; condensation and omis- 
sion have been necessary. 

This little volume is made possible by the contributions of 
Gilbert J. Ellis, William A. Ellis, Norton A. Ellis, Leander 
A. Ellis and sons, Mrs. Clara B. Home and family, Mary E. 
Jacobs, and Mrs. Melissa Osborn. Others may participate 
as suggested above. 

It has been accepted by the writer, that the first Benjamin 
Ellis family came from Richmond to Watertown ; although 
we have nowhere a statement to that effect. The circum- 
stances and recollections make it seem almost certain that 
the family came from Watertown to Newport, as assumed ; 
and yet there is more than a possibility that they lived in 
some other place in New York, and came from thence to 
Newport. The twenty years between 1788 and 1808 are there- 
fore not definitely accounted for at this time, 1909. E. 



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